Bones grow from the middle to both ends (english version)
by meandmyinsanity
Summary: Lizzie Bennet knew about a lot of things: How to best handle OneNightStands and Hangovers, keep Charlotte from doing dumb things, bear her mother, healing stones and weddings and most important of all: HOW TO SURVIVE BEING A MED STUDENT! But all those abilities were suddenly of no use at all when it came to one William Darcy. Her fucking professor. Modern AU. Strong T
1. Prologue

Prologue:

The first thing she felt, was the warmth.

She felt the sheets, tangled around her legs and between her feet, cutting her body in two halves, where the edge of the blanket slightly ran across her lower back.

She felt the rays of sunshine, dancing over the bare skin along her spine, tickling and teasing. She kept her eyes closed, sensed the more compact warmth of her hair that covered her neck and shoulders.

She was aware of her hands under the white pillow, just as much as she was conscious of the smooth and soft fabric under her cheek. She turned on her side, lightly lifting her knees to her chest, suddenly becoming aware of the fact that she was naked.

And then it took all her willpower not to rip her eyes open, jump out of the bed and grab her clothes like some sort of saving anchor.

_What the hell happened?_

She felt the prickling in her throat and down her stomach, as if she'd drunken the adrenaline that was now surging through her veins.

She breathed in and paused, slightly panic, when his scent hit her nose. A mix of cigarettes and citrons, even though she knew, he didn't smoke. None of them did.

Something like regret crawled up her fingers, her calves, her throat, centred itself in the lump in her throat, she'd gotten to know so well in the past few months.

_What have I done?_

Something other, something _warm_, suddenly touched the sensitive skin on her back, danced like the sunlight before with the slight difference that it was no light touching her, but skin on skin and bones against bones.

And the goosebumps it aroused were as real as the hand on her back, drawing patterns.


	2. Chapter 1 Oh shit!

**A/N: So it's here at last... In some of my earlier one shots i already mentioned my endeavour to translate my multi-chapter story from german to english and finally, finally, the first chapter is ready;)**

**I hope you'll like it and I hope to be able to upload frequently, there won't be a schedule because I'm going to post chapters as soon as the translation is ready;) This is still a work in progress, so if you have any complaints or suggestions, please tell me and I'll try to get better, same goes for my english;)**

**Some things to this story: The rating of this one is a pretty strong T, for those of you who have read Long Live the King and its sequel: It goes in that direction, so sex is mentioned but not explicit, also my characters curse, a lot and I'm not going to apologize for it, because it makes them human and slightly more believable. The thing that keeps me thinking about changing the rating to M is because of some themes like drug abuse and violence/ suicide later on in the story, it doesn't really take place up front, but it happens and it's discussed and has lasting effects (as a warning, this Lizzie is not always a sunshine). So if you have a problem with it, don't read, or if you think it's to heavy tell me and I'll change the rating, that's a constant offer;) **

**I'm also going to post a soundtrack before each chapter that is essential for it, for this one it is: Machine - Regina Spektor;)**

**So now I'll quit rambling and let's get to the story, I'm really excited to go on this journey with you;)**

**Disclaimer: *inspects nails, looks up randomly* Oh I still don't own Austen, can someone please tell me, when I do?!**

* * *

**Chapter 1: **Oh Shit!

She'd been late that morning, the first day of the new semester.

Hungover from the "Welcome-Back-Party" with Charlotte, that escalated quickly from "just a drink at Philips" (the Pub situated under their shabby apartment) to a tour through a variety of different clubs, a drunken race at the water front of the Thames and a following collapse in the just as shabby apartment of two guys.

Between the moment, where the blonde, taller one of the two stuck his tongue in her mouth and the second, his hand slipped under her shirt, her mind thankfully became clear enough, so that she could disentangle herself, grab Charlotte, who seemed to be glued to the other, smaller guy with the sweaty hands, and to catch a cab in order to go home.

The morning after had been brutal, Lizzie had completely forgotten to set up her alarm clock and only awoken at half past eight, because her totally insane and manic mother thought it to be the best time to tell her daughter via phone everything about the New-Age-Miracle-Cure, she was so excited about.

"Healing Stones, Lizzie! Mrs Long from across the street recommended them! She said, rose quartz had been a blessing for Richard's potency problems!"

"Mom!", Lizzie had protested and placed the phone on the mattress next to her ear, even in this position her mother's shrill voice was more than clearly audible.

"I am absolutely convinced, she's right, Agatha is always so knowledgeable about these things, her niece Louise keeps updating her... however, Lizze, that's the reason I bought a bunch of them for your father-"

"Mom!" Definitely awake now, she'd sat up halfway before her head had gotten in the way and forced her to to lie back down on the pillow. Her mother in the meantime clinked along animatedly.

"Don't play coy with me, young lady! As if it's something so unthinkable that two mature adults still have an active sexlife!" Lizzies mouth escaped another moan, which admittedly could also be attributed to the throbbing headache, that now started. "... even though things with me and your father..."

"Mom, I got to go!", she interrupted her mother's tirade hurriedly, before Mrs Bennet could reveal things, Lizzie would only be able to talk about in therapy sessions.

"Wait, Lizzie!", her mother shrilled. "Jane is coming to the city this weekend, she wanted to tell you herself, but I told her not to, because I wanted to call you myself to tell you about this delightful idea, Mrs Long had-"

"Jane's coming?", Lizzie asked, now wide awake.

"Oh yes! She has a job interview on Saturday! It happened on short-notice, otherwise she would have told you beforehand, I'm sure."

"Didn't know, Jane was looking for a new job", Lizzie mumbled in her pillow, halfway successfully managing to suppress her headache.

Jane, her oldest sister, was a teacher at the local primary school in Meryton, their home town, and the nicest person, Lizzie had ever met.

"Do you remember the nice, young men, Jane is dating since summer?"

"The doctor?"

"Exactly! Such a well bred, handsome young men and he's rich, too! His name is Bingley!"

"Like the business tycoon?"

"His son! He did some surgeries at Netherfield Hospital, Jane met him there, while taking one of her charges to the ER – nasty story, you know..."

"Yeah, I remember", Lizzie replied, eyes closed, while listening to her mother. "Lots of blood and all that stuff, right?"

"However! The two of them met and it was love on first sight and now they are as good as married!"

"They're engaged?!" Her favourite sister not telling her of her engagement was strange indeed, even though Janie was extremely cautious when it came to talking about feelings.

"It's all but certain!", her mother declared exuberantly and her high-pitched voice caused Lizzies ear to ring with pain. "He worships her! Who couldn't? My dear sweet Janie..."

Okay, that certainly explained a lot... her mother was again totally irrational.

"So why the sudden job interview?"

"Charles is now back in the city and the both of them didn't want to turn their relationship into a long-distance one, so Jane is now moving in with him and also looking for a new job as a teacher... Why they couldn't move here in the first place is beyond me. Meryton is such a pretty little town, the doctors at the hospital love him and Jane got her job here, also the school-district is one of the best and the neighbourhood is just perfect for children... besides he promised me to attend at least one Friday-dinner at hour house-"

"Mom, I'm sure, he'll attend lots of dinners at your home, if the thing between him and Jane is as serious as you say-"

"What are you talking about? Of course it's serious, he loves her!"

"I'm just saying.."

"Nonsense, child! I'm sure Jane is going to sport a pretty shiny stone on her ring finger really soon!"

"Mom..." Lizzie knew her mother and she new her tirade about matrimony and children by heart and if she wouldn't stop her now...

"When are you going to get married, Lizzie? It's been a while since you brought a nice young man home with you! You know, I expect grandchildren and the clock is ticking..."

"Mom, I'm twenty-three!"

"Exactly! You know, I wasn't much older than you, when I-"

"Yeah, I know", Lizzie interrupted her. "I need to stop now, Mom, gotta go! Tell Janie, she should give me a call, okay?"

"But Lizzie!"

"Bye Mom!"

Groaning with pain she shut her phone and that was the exact moment her eyes fell on the blinking display of her alarm clock.

"Shit!"

"Charlotte!", she shouted while half jumping, half falling out of bed. Charlotte just mumbled something in her pillow, when Lizzie threw open the door to her room, toothbrush in one hand, painkillers in the other.

"Come on, Charlotte, move your lazy ass out of that bed, we're so fucking late!" Charlotte just groaned something inaudible and turned on her other side.

"Charlotte?", Lizzie asked from the kitchen while turning on the water boiler.

"I told you to shut up!", Charlotte yelled from her room and buried her face in the pillow.

"Charlotte, we have to go!"

"I'm not coming!"

"It's the first lecture, do you remember?"

"Fuck you", was all Charlotte replied.

"Thank you very much."

She left Charlotte there and walked down the street to the tube station in her big, grey sweatshirt, leggings and boots, her hair a barely tamed mess, cascading down her back.

She was not hopelessly late, if she made haste now, it would probably just be some five or ten minutes and knowing her professors, she was pretty sure, she wouldn't be _that_ late.

Thermos flask in hand, she walked down the the corridor to the lecture theatre twenty minutes later just in time to see the slowly closing door before her.

"Wait!", Lizzie cried out and slid along the tiled floor just in the direction of the door and slipped right through the small opening before it closed with a loud thud behind her.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're too late", a deep, dark voice sounded right behind her. She looked up. Tall, pale, black hair, classic profile. He wore a suit and looked like he was just on the way to some job interview at a bank.

_Freshman_, she thought, even though he was a lot older then her, but that didn't matter much in Med School. She rolled her eyes, they were always so _proper_.

"Yeah, smarty-pants", Lizzie shot back and walked up the stairs to the tiers.

"Perhaps, Miss - "

"Bennet." She leaned back in one of those seats and pulled her knees up, pressed them against her chest, even though there wasn't much space to begin with.

"Miss Bennet, perhaps you should curb your night time activities to a minimum and actually invest your energy in trying to be punctual for class."

She raised her chin, a derisive smile playing around her lips. "And what exactly qualifies you to judge my night time activities?"

Lizzie saw how the muscles in his jaw set and how he pressed his lips tightly together.

"See?" She laughed in her coffee mug.

"It doesn't change the fact, that you're too late."

"May I give you some sort of advice, Mr - ?"

"Darcy. And no, you may not."

"I'll be that forward either way and tell you that this a lecture and that there, contrary to a seminar, is no compulsory attendance at a lecture and the way I see it, said lecture hasn't even started yet, so keep calm and loose this tie." She eyed him carefully, said cravat had some little ducks on it. "You should definitely loose that tie."

He touched the knot and the look with which he regarded her, should have probably killed her off but only got her laughing.

"Any other problems with my clothing, Miss Bennet?"

She rolled her eyes, bank-guy hadn't only adopted the clothing but also the attitude of a tax collector.

"Then let us begin with today's lecture", he concluded and walked, to her utter horror, over to the speaker's desk.

Oh Shit.

It took some time, but the shock about having the stuffy bank-guy as her new Ethics Professor faded in the course of the lecture. Darcy was arrogant, stuck-up and so abominably rude to everybody, who even dared to ask a question, that at the end of those 90 minutes Lizzie didn't even feel the slightest bit of remorse over her previous words.

After a short glimpse into his own biography (Darcy had been a trauma surgeon in Derbyshire and had retired to this professorship after some years as an attending medical director even though he was probably not much older than perhaps thirty).

So when Charlotte, half an hour too late (sooner or later her bad conscience always kicked in), finally walked into the lecture theatre and Darcy nearly shouted at her from behind his desk, Lizzie had already concluded that the new professor was an ass and apparently had some deep rooted problems with mankind in general.

"What _poked_ him this morning?", Charlotte asked in a whisper, Darcy had looked over to them derisively, when "Miss Lucas!" had chosen a seat next to Lizzie.

"His girlfriend denied him the usual morning round after he scolded her for nuisance during an orgasm", Lizzie deadpanned while scribbling down notes.

Charlotte giggled behind her hand and earned a disapproving glance from the professor. "That guy really needs to work on his social skills", she declared, still giggling.

Lizzie snorted. "That would imply that he actually possesses some."

Darcy continued talking about his requirements and examination regulations and the whole group of students escaped an exasperated groan.

"He's crazy", Lizzie murmured and looked at him, her head shaking slightly in disbelief.

"I think I heard about him before", Charlotte suddenly exclaimed. "He owns half of Pemberley Research Institute."

"The miserable half?", Lizzie asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That guy is _insanely_ rich, Lizzie!"

"So why doesn't he leave us alone and gets a blow job from some blonde Botox-Bimbo on Hawaii?"

"Lizzie!"

"What?"

"He stares at you." Charlotte's eyes flew to Darcy. "I think he heard you."

Lizzie's eyes followed Charlotte's and met dark, unrelenting counterparts. She leaned back and groaned.

"Oh Shit."

The game continued on Thursday. Darcy was reciting something about modern ethical conflicts and Lizzie fed Charlotte with biting remarks until the girl nearly rolled on the floor laughing.

"Miss Bennet, if you are not otherwise occupied, then please do us the honour and elaborate your opinion on this topic", Darcy said pointedly and the glare, he directed against Lizzie, was probably meant to silence her.

But Lizzie just straightened up and focused on the board.

"In my opinion both approaches are problematic. Considering sexuality as genetically determined could lead to see homosexuality as some kind of genetic failure, while contemplating it as determined through outer influences could imply that said homosexuality or also paedophilia are caused by faults in the upbringing or the education of people. In both cases the effects on society and humanity in general would be disastrous."

"And what do you think determines sexuality?"

Lizzie leaned in and smiled slowly, a small sparkle in her eyes."Both."

He looked at her, hands on both sides of his desk. He wasn't wearing a tie this time but had opened the first button of his dress shirt.

"Can you give reasons for this, Miss Bennet, or does it just appear to be the most convenient answer?"

She held his gaze and cocked her head. "I like Punk music", she then said and lightly tipped with her index finger against the back of the chair in front of her.

"And what is this shocking revelation supposed to tell us, Miss Bennet?"

An amused smile slightly raised the corners of her mouth and the green of her eyes seemed to light up. "That even you can't tell me that it is genetically determined, because I can assure you that no one in my family shares my proclivities and according to the environmental factor I would need to faint everytime One-Direction is played on the radio." She cocked her head slightly. "Which I don't."

There was some laughter throughout the tiers and more than one smirking face and Charlotte, still slightly breathless while recovering from her laughing fit, experienced some great trouble trying to remain calm in the face of Darcy's ire.

"Thank you very much, Miss Bennet, for this illuminating explanation", Darcy replied stiffly and Lizzie dropped her head in mock display of a curtsy, while muttering "pompous prat" under her breath, which sent Charlotte nearly over the edge again.

* * *

Jane called on Friday.

She'd already told Lizzie on Tuesday that she would move to the city the following weekend – Jane would move in with Charles in his fancy penthouse in Belgravia – a fact that reduced her normally calm and serene older sister to a nervously stuttering (and, as Lizzie suspected, bright red coloured) fool and called again on Thursday to make sure that everything would run smoothly.

She hadn't refrained from teasing her sister, even though she was genuinely happy that Jane had found someone, who could actually make her smile.

"Oh Lizzie, he is the best of men! Always so nice and friendly..."

_Yeah Jane, that's exactly the way I would describe the guy, I'm going to live and have a dozen children with – as nice and friendly..._

Jane had invited her for Friday evening to some kind of Welcome-Party together with some of Jane's and Charles' friends.

"Charlie's sister Caroline and his best friend William are also coming – Oh my god, I'm going to die!"

"Why? Is he one of those incredibly spoiled bachelors with a big trust fund and Mommy-issue, who spends his time between London and L.A. buried in the first class and forces his exorbitant demands on everyone not fortunate enough to escape immediately, because he just can't be expected to use the same toilet paper as everybody else?"

"Lizzie", Jane had exclaimed horrified and gasped for air, while Lizzie, phone pressed between shoulder and ear, had been filling her shopping trolley with groceries.

"Or he's one of those business-guys, who always keep a straight face, bury themselves behind their laptops and quarterly reports and need more than a bottle of vodka to get their mouths to open up. He probably also has some blonde girlfriend on Tahiti, which he keeps satisfied with expensive jewellery and promises to marry her, something he will only do, when he reaches the age of forty and has no motivation to look for another one."

"Lizzie!"

"What? It's the truth!", she'd giggled while walking down the racks with the cereal boxes, deliberating whether or not she wanted Choco Crispies for breakfast tomorrow.

"Don't you think, you're a bit prejudiced, my dear?"

"Me? I think you're not prejudiced enough, Janie-Paney! Or how is it, Miss Sunshine-and-Rainbows-and-Oh-my-gosh-isn't-he-cute?"

"Lizzie, stop making fun of me!"

"I wouldn't dare make fun of you, dear sister", Lizzie had assured her and fought to suppress the smile, that threatened to consume her face and her voice for that matter, while grabbing the cereal box – she was in dire need of sugar after a day like that.

"So if this guy is nothing like I just imagined, then why are you so darn nervous?"

She'd sensed the hesitation in Jane's voice before her sister answered. "He means a lot to Charles and her relies on him... a lot... I just want to make a good impression... or ..."

"Or what, Janie? Charles a big boy. You don't think he'll just go and leave you high and dry, just because Mr High and Mighty shows to be displeased, do you?"

"No! No, of course not..", Jane had declared emphatically, but Lizzie had sensed the doubt in her voice and assured her sister to be there on Friday and provide every encouragement necessary.

"But you were true about one thing", Jane had said a bit giggly at the end. "Charlie says, that Will has been single for years."

"Sounds a bit demanding to me", Lizzie had murmured, while her eyes were roaming about the shelves with the sweets. _Like some people I know_, she mused and thought about their ethics professor, who had just this morning assigned a filling pages essay about Kant's categorical imperative.

"Sounds like you, Lizzie", Jane had remarked, still giggling. Lizzie had pouted a bit, even though Jane couldn't see that through the phone.

"You're not going to set me up again, Janie, do you? Remember the last time..."

"Oh my gosh! No!", Jane had cried. "He must be at least ten years older than you!"

"Thank goodness", was Lizzies only reply before she ended the call.

And now she was again on the phone. Agitated and a bit hysteric Jane nearly screamed in Lizzies ear, that her train was running late, that her taxi wasn't there and that Charles hadn't finished his shift at the hospital and was therefore unable to fetch her from the train station.

Lizzie grumbled something or other and in a rather foul mood disentangled herself from her blankets. It was already half past ten, but today was one of her rare free days so to her it felt like six in the morning.

"I'm gonna get you", she mumbled into the phone, while shuffling into the bathroom. Janes jubilant, decidedly _awake_ voice made Lizzie cringe and step onto the little bottles of nail varnish, scattered across the floor. "Ouch!"

She borrowed Craig's car, her neighbour from apartment 2C, who, still in boxers and with a slightly drugged expression on his face, gave her the keys with a non-descriptive sound and stumbled back towards his bed.

Craig's old car was a scrap heap, held together only by a fair amount of screws, but it dutifully made its kilometres and was the only possibility for Lizzie to collect her sister from King's Cross.

"Lizzie!", Jane exclaimed jubilantly, the moment the motor of the old Ford stopped with a spluttering sound in front of the railway building and hastened towards her sister, her trolley rattling behind her.

"Hi, Jane", Lizzie managed to get out and briefly hugged her sister, before she strode towards the building, Jane had just left.

"Lizzie, where are you going?", Jane asked bewildered and followed her with the obligatory "Klack-Klack-Klack"- sound the wheels made.

"Coffee", was all Lizzie could say and it was the only thing she murmured for the next ten minutes before she finally held a steamy cup of Cappuccino in her hand.

"Ah, Caffeine...", she murmured and breathed in deep.

Jane laughed. "I see you haven't changed much."

Lizzie tore her gaze from her most favourite object in the world right now and looked into her sisters bright blue eyes, which seemed to shimmer in the sunlight.

Jane wore a kind of blue business-outfit, elegant shoes and had her hair in a loose bun. Despite the rather formal attire she looked as fresh and radiant and beautiful as if she was walking down the beach in a light sun dress.

"And you look as perfect as always."

"Lizzie!"

"And still as sensitive to compliments." Lizzie flashed her sister a smile, indicating that she was only teasing. "See, nothing has changed."

"Oh my fucking goodness!", Lizzie exclaimed, when she first set foot into the huge, expensively decorated penthouse that seemed to belong to her sister's boyfriend.

Jane put her oversized sun glasses in her hair and looked around the apartment, an overwhelmed expression on her face.

"And I'd planned to do a simple party with wine and some snacks", she mumbled and collapsed onto one of the three sofas in what seemed to be the living room, followed by Lizzie.

"You still can do that, you know", Lizzie replied and stared out of the vast floor-length windows, which provided a breathtaking view over the city and the Thames.

"Oh gracious, No!", Jane cried out. "With an apartment such as this one, there needs to be at least some three-course menu and a bunch of waiters and of course champagne!"

Lizzie looked at her amused. "Don't you think, you're overdoing it a bit?"

"Ah, I don't know... Why hasn't Charles said anything?" She looked a bit doubtful at the ceiling and the oversized chandelier, that hung there.

"Didn't he mention, somewhere between those two lines, where it said: "Jane, I love you" and "Do you want to move in with me?", the fact that he is the proud owner of a penthouse in Belgravia?" She looked around. "A really huge penthouse for that matter."

"No", Jane sighed distressed. "He only said, that he had an apartment here and that there would be enough space for the two of us."

"You two have plenty of space here. For you, for him and your five children and if you're careful enough you don't even get to see each other." She pointed at the length of the room, which could easily contain hers and Craig's apartment at the same time. "I mean this thing is enormous, just hope that it's not some kind of compensation."

"What kind of compensation?", Jane asked bemused.

"Some men tend to buy overly... large things, if their lacking magnitude in certain other areas", Lizzie explained and managed to put her arms in front of her head before the cushion, Jane aimed at her, found its target. Both girls were giggling.

"Who told you that?", Jane burst out, gasping for air.

"Uh, Anne has a lot of those stories in store, if you ever get bored..."

"I'll give her a call", Jane concluded and Lizzie sighed.

"Just so you know, if Mom ever finds out where you're living right now, she'll probably have a fit."

"Oh god, please don't tell her", Jane whispered, suddenly horrified and buried her face in the cushion, that, just mere moments ago, had been misused as a projectile.

"Oh, don't worry", Lizzie said and jumped a little closer to her sister. Head placed on Jane's shoulder, she looked at her a bit sheepishly. "She already knows."

"Lizzie.."

"Come on, Jane. When will Charlie be back?

Jane looked up, just the mention of his name seemed to restore her spirits. "Round about 5 o'clock. He said, I should organize whatever I want for the party."

"Okay, perhaps we should start with shopping, don't you think?"

Jane looked her in the eye, a bit of fire in her gaze. "Okay."

"Then let's go!"

All in all it hadn't been such a bad idea, Lizzie Bennet concluded, while sitting with slighlty bent knees in a shopping trolley, which was moved through the insanely long aisles in the supermarket by her sister, and hoarding the groceries between her legs.

There was definitely an advantage to observing people from this vantage point, because most of them didn't even notice that there was another human being in the trolley.

Jane's continuing monologue over possible party snacks, which sounded more and more like the menu of some fancy restaurant (_really, whoever has the brilliant idea to offer caramelised grilled chicken at a party?_), only afforded the bare minimum of attention and some occasional, mumbled affirmation, while putting back the unnecessary, albeit ridiculous stuff, Jane threw into the shopping trolley.

"How's university?", Jane asked, when finally arriving at the pay desk (or in Lizzies case: sitting in front of it). "It's year 4, isn't it?"

"Jup", Lizzie said and popped the syllable like a bubble.

"Anything new?"

"Just an ethics professor, who seems to be an ass." She looked at the box of ice-cream at her feet. _Walnut? Honestly, Jane?_

"Lizzie!"

"Really Jane", she turned around in the trolley. "Isn't crying out my name all the time getting on your nerves or something?"

Jane's perfectly rosy red lips contorted into a smile. "Lizbit, you can't just go out and randomly call people asses only because they tend to disagree with you."

"First, I don't call people _randomly_ a certain part of the human anatomy. Second, Lizbit is nearly as worse as the constant "Lizzie" and third", she turned around completely to face her innocent target, "honestly, Jane? _Asses_? You know, I totally agree with correct wording and all that stuff, but _asses_?"

"I'm a teacher, Lizzie."

"Yeah", she turned back to face the front. "In elementary school, Janie. Don't tell me that you're often declining _asses_ in primary school or else I'm really going to loose my faith in our whole educational system."

Jane laughed out happily and Lizzie could do nothing but grin at the sound.

It had always been that way. Even when she was little, Jane had had that effect on other people. A smile of hers could lift the spirit of a whole class and even grim old grandfathers contorted their wrinkled faces in smiles, when little, blond Jane, the angel, stood in front of them lisping (she had a tooth gap at that age)and offered them a piece of cake.

"You never had any faith in the first place, Lizzie." She moved the trolley a bit to the side to let an elderly woman with a bunch of carrots pass by. "Which is kind of hurting my sensibilities, dear sister."

Her sister just snorted and grabbed some chocolate bars from a shelve near the pay desk.

"As long as you stop declining four-letter words, my faith remains intact. I mean, where would we be without crepe paper, glue and glittering pens?"

"Sure you're not mixing up primary school with yourself, sweetheart? I'm aware of the hoard in your desk drawer and I know you're always stealing some pens of mine..."

Lizzie crossed her arms in front of her chest, while Jane let another old lady pass by. "What should I do with glittering pens?"

"That's what I'm asking myself." Jane started packing out the trolley and stole Lizzie's chocolate bars out of her hand.

"I'm pretty sure, Charlotte is eating them...", Lizzie mused while helping her sister.

"If you say so, my dear."

"... pretty sure... Her tongue was glittering purple these days..."

Jane arched an eyebrow. "If you say so..."

* * *

They managed to get back to Charlie's and now Jane's apartment in no time (the concierge waved to them in a friendly manner) and the sisters began to prepare the snacks for the party.

"Are you serious, Jane?", Lizzie asked in between, while around her there were cookbooks opened, vegetables cut and spices scattered across the kitchen surfaces, additionally it whizzed and whooshed around her until she felt like being stuck in some big, lively witch cauldron.

Both of them were totally absorbed with cooking and decorating (Jane had selected the colour scheme on their way back to the apartment and Lizzie now helped transforming the boring purple napkins in some fairy-tale figures), when suddenly the loud bang with which the door fell shut, indicated Charles arrival.

"Jane", he exclaimed and with a big smile on his face entered the living room/kitchen zone.

The first thing Lizzie noted was the wild manner in which the pale red blond strands of Charlie's hair were standing out in every direction and second was the impossible huge grin on his face, that made her want to cuddle him like some teddy bear. Which was really not disturbing at all.

"Charlie!", Jane cried and flung, Disney-style, her arms around his neck.

"Hurray", Lizzie murmured slightly ironic, but smiled, when Charlie (after disentangling himself from Jane at some point) also hugged her and told her to feel welcome.

"Jane, told me a lot about you", he said smiling and threw Jane a look of such adoration, that Lizzie nearly choked on the water in her throat.

Charles looked around the kitchen and deeply impressed took in all those plates with food and the decorations (Lizzie was at the moment holding a slightly unfortunate version of a swan in her hand), before smacking his hand against his forehead, like a little schoolboy.

"Shit, oh I totally forgot that Will is coming soon. He needed to work late today and his apartment is an hour drive away from here, that's why I told him to get changed in our apartment instead."

"Oh okay", Jane managed to get out, but Lizzie could see that the prospect of seeing Charlie's best friend so soon made her quite nervous.

She stood up and placed the mishandled swan on the kitchen counter, before kissing Jane on the cheek. "That's my cue, Janie. I need to get dressed and, you know, take care of Charlotte before she attempts to do something really... dumb."

"Oh", Jane said and stood a little lost in the middle of the kitchen, between the humming pots and pans, the heaps of bowls and plates, that looked like wavering towers.

"Come on, Janie", Lizzie whispered. _Don't look at me like that! You know that doesn't work with me!_

"You can get dressed here", Charlie suggested, noting the forlorn look in Jane's eyes.

"And what exactly do I put on?", Lizzie asked with a half smile.

"Oh, you could borrow something from me!", Jane exclaimed, a sudden smile on her lips, that hadn't lost any of its vibrancy in the past few years since childhood.

"Janie...", Lizzie said hesitatingly, she wanted to support her sister in every way possible, but something inside her seemed to scream at her to get her things and run away as fast as she could.

(Yeah, she was a bit schizophrenic at times, but she only obeyed the little voice in her head, when it was pleading her most civilly).

"Ah, come on, I got the perfect dress for you! Besides, what can Charlotte possibly do? You've already confiscated the matches and the lighters last month, didn't you?"

Lizzie cocked her head slightly. "That's true."

"Okay, then let's go, Charlie can do the rest... can you, Charlie?" Jane had pulled her sister along with her and now looked at her boyfriend expectantly. Charlie's head bobbed a bit confused from one Bennet-sister to the other, before he nodded and reached for the swan-figure.

"Come on, Lizzie!" With a sigh she followed her sister into the oversized bedroom and the walk-in closet, where Jane's valise was opened up on the floor.

"My other stuff is still at home", Jane explained. "I'm going to get them in the next few weeks if all goes according to plan."

Lizzie smiled and and took place on the chaise longue (there was really a chaise longue), while Jane was working her way through the contents of her luggage until she produced a knee-length, sleeveless, flowing blue dress and tossed it at Lizzie.

"Go and get dressed", she commanded, while looking for her own dress.

"You're getting more demanding each day", Lizzie complained while stripping off her jeans. "Must be the big sister gen."

"Oh really?", Jane replied with a smile. "If that's so, than you definitely have it too. Just think about Kitty and Lydia."

"Grr", Lizzie made, reluctant to even think about their totally out of of control younger sisters, while putting on the dress.

Surprisingly it actually fit and what was even more astonishing was the fact, that she actually liked it, how the soft, silky material clung to her body. There were a couple of ribbons with silver beads on the ends to be laced below her chest – Lizzie managed to get tangled up so hopelessly in those few silk ribbons, that Jane had to take them out of her hand and disentangle all those knots before her sister got to strangle herself.

If there was something in life Lizzie Bennet had no knowledge of, it were (to the utter misery of her mother) dresses. She preferred simple things like Jeans and leggings and cotton shirts, things, that would also survive a washing at the wrong temperature and inadequate depositories.

"So", Jane said, after having finally solved the mess and gave her a pat on the head. "Bathroom and don't you dare come out without any make-up on your face!"

"Aye, Mom", Lizzie obeyed with a curtsy and a smirk, met by Jane with a sigh and a roll of her eyes.

She didn't need much time in this fancy, big bathroom and certainly spend more of it admiring the bathtub of the size of a whirlpool than wasting it on her appearance.

She looked at her image in the mirror. Wild, dark brown curls, framing her face, never to be tamed neither by any brush nor the constant bemoaning of her mother about her savaged appearance. There were freckles on her nose and her green eyes, slightly askew like those of a cat, sparkled in a blue shade when she laughed. Lizzie knew she wasn't as beautiful and perfect as her older sister, but she'd come to terms with it a long time ago, she was aspiring to become a doctor not a supermodel.

The bell rang and Lizzie was on her way to leave the bathroom when she suddenly became aware of the fact, that she wasn't wearing any shoes and even though her heavy black boots with the self-applied spikes, she wore earlier that day, probably would distribute to a rather interesting fashion statement, she highly doubted that Jane would be overjoyed by it.

She examined her feet, which still looked presentable after the last pedicure, Charlotte had dragged her to.

_How bad can it be?_

Really bad apparently.

Lizzie was just out of the bathroom and on her way to the living room/kitchen area, when the front door suddenly sprang wide open and she heard a male voice cursing.

She was on the verge of answering this rather rude intruder (something between "Who are you and what are you doing here?" and "You should really take care of the things, that come out of your mouth, they could potentially hurt people"), when Charlie greeted him with a loud "Hey, Will!" and came along the corridor towards the man, who apparently was his best friend.

"Fuck it, some people should really get their drivers licence revoked!", the man cussed angrily. "Have you seen that junker directly in front of your door? I had to drive around the block three times to find another parking lot! Fuck, Charlie, you know that's my space! Besides, which halfway sane person drives such a _thing_?"

"Uh", came out of Charlie's mouth, when Lizzie turned around the corner and into the corridor.

"That would be me", she announced, arms crossed in front of her chest. "And which grown man wails like a baby because he was denied his favourite toy?"

The newcomer's head jerked up, tall, dark, handsome. She stopped dead in her tracks and her mouth fell open like she was some kind of stupid goldfish.

"Oh Shit."

She was fucked up royally.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, that's it, hope you like it;) The beginning, so this one and the next chapter are probably the closest this story gets to the original, I mean, Netherfield, Rosings, Hunsford! and of course Pemberley will happen more or less like the book, but there's lots of a AU, a slight cross-over and some original characters as well;) and it gets a bit darker, but the humour will remain (or at least what I think is humour, I'm the only one laughing over my jokes most of the time, so I don't know how funny it'll be for you, I'll try anyway;) **

**Okay stay tuned until next time and: Reviews appreciated! Same goes for PMs and favourites/follows;) I'm a sucker for those but most of all reviews;) **

**As an afterthought: I'm still no native speaker, sniff, I wish I was english, I just love London;) but as it is, please tell me if I write complete crap;)  
**


	3. Chapter 2 Not Fair!

**A/N: Okay, hey guys! I'm really sorry for the delay, especially so because of the warm reception and all those reviews, follows and favourites;) you guys tend to amaze me! Didn't know you were that eager to read my story;) But alas there were some issues with betaing and because I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer, here is the second chapter, unbetaed, I will eventually replace it with a correct version, so tell me if something is off;) I'm always grateful for those comments;)**

**I forgot to tell you that there's a playlist on my authors page with a list of songs that reflect Lizzie and Darcy's personalities, which influenced me while writing and I'm updating it regularly, so if you listen to the songs, there might be some foreshadowing;)**

**To answer some of your reviews: **

**cutelilmochi: I didn't really get your review and didn't understand the comment about one of them walking away... However I think the whole part of this story is that none of our beloved characters walks away, because otherwise there wouldn't be a story... nonetheless this story is a lot about running away in particular, so perhaps you're not so far away from the truth;) either way, thanks for your review;)**

**margaeryen: If you like the closeness to the original... well let's just say, it's going to stray a lot, so please be aware of that;) about the dark parts... you get some hints of it in this chapter, so read closely;)**

**guest: I thought so too! That's the whole point of the argument in my opinion;)**

**Anyway, I'll cease rambling if you've got questions: review or PM me;)**

**Soundtrack: Planetary - My Chemical Romance (the song played at the end, lyrics in italics, sadly not mine;)**

**Disclaimer: And as always: still not owning Austen... honestly I'm not wearing corsets;)**

* * *

**Chapter 2: ** Not Fair!

One of the first things you learn in life is the fact that it's everything but fair.

In other words: Life is a meanie and it likes to stick out its tongue.

So when you're barely six years old and whining, because _everybody else_ is allowed to stay up late at night watching television, your parents like to paraphrase it with an exasperated groan and a "it's the way it is"-explanation (the latter, Lizzie remembered mostly from her father, her mother rather liked to complain about her daughter's ungratefulness).

Or when you're fourteen and beating yourself up about the fact, that your nose is too long, your hips too wide and your boobs not big enough an exasperated best friend likes to put it in an "need a visit to a plastic surgeon or is a shot with a gun cheap enough?"-groan just to shut you up (she hadn't been talking to Florence for a whole two weeks afterwards).

At eighteen then, when you're faced with the hot, blazing African sun and you barely now how to get up in the morning, people stop rephrasing the ultimate truth and just put it in your face when dragging you out of bed.

Resign yourself and make the best out of it, it's not like anyone cares.

And in the end that's, what she'd always been doing. She'd managed to survive her crazy family, her home town and High School, no matter the difficulties and acquired a place at one of the best London universities on her own. Lizzie knew how to fight beastly adversities, be it impending deadlines, bad friends or the worst of them all: Maths.

But this beat everything.

She stood there, mouth agape, barefoot in a knee-length silk-dress, in front of the utter _bastard_, that had filled her weekend with research and endless paperwork.

Professor. W. Fucking Darcy. Who, as an afterthought, was apparently called William.

He seemed to recover first.

"Miss Bennet", he managed to get out, clearly uncomfortable. Charlie's gaze travelled a bit confused from one to the other.

"Professor", Lizzie acknowledged, her arms still crossed in front of her chest, a derisive smile tugging at her lips.

"You know each other?", Charlie asked good-naturedly, before the sudden realisation hit him. "Wait... Professor?" His head rotated back to Darcy, who had found back into his usual blank mask.

"Jup", said Lizzie. "My ethics professor..."

"Ah, Lizzie, are you still complaining about that idiot?", Jane suddenly chimed in and also entered the hallway. She stopped dead in her tracks, when seeing the newcomer, the wide skirt of her cream-coloured dress, flowing around her knees.

Lizzie grinned. "Apparently."

"Oh", was the only sound, that escaped Jane, while her eyes were jumping from Lizzie to Darcy and back. "William... he is you professor?", she asked incredulously. Lizzie's grin grew even wider.

"Jup, isn't it, professor?" She cast a quick glance at Darcy, who didn't seem to be entirely comfortable with the situation, he found himself in.

"Ah...", he said, while Charlie was splitting his sides laughing. Jane looked confused from one to the other and it was apparent that she deeply regretted having called Darcy an idiot.

"You're welcome, William", she finally managed to get out and shook his hand.

"Oh Oh", Charlie chimed in, looking like he was close to his next laughing fit. "If you're her professor, Darcy, is she therefore the student, you complained about? The one teasing you about your tie-" At this point an indignant looking professor effectively cut him short by pushing his bag into Charlie's stomach region.

Lizzie had to suppress a laugh when the whole party (a gasping Charlie, a stoic professor and Jane, who evidently felt awkward with the strained atmosphere in the group) made their way into the living room/kitchen area.

"Oh Lizzie, you're not wearing any shoes!", Jane exclaimed suddenly, when she passed by. Her sister looked down to her bare feet on the dark hardwood floor and examined them curiously as if surprised by the fact.

"You didn't give me any", she replied while the same amused smile played at the corners of her mouth.

"And _that_ has prevented you from grabbing a pair of mine?" Jane perched her hands on her hips. "It never did before, you know."

"Hey, those shoes were mine!", Lizzie exclaimed indignantly. "I only took them back, after you _hid_ them in your closet."

Jane arched a perfectly sculptured eyebrow. "May I remind you, dear sister, that you've stolen them from me in the first place?"

Lizzie pouted. "I haven't _stolen_ them, as you put it."

"No I gave them to you for _prom_, after you decided in the last possible minute to actually go there."

"Oh Oh!", Charlie cried out and elbowed Darcy, but the dark-haired man didn't even bat an eyelash. "That sounds like sisterly affection, doesn't it?"

"If you say so, Bingley", he answered curtly, his eyes fixed on the Bennet-sisters.

Lizzie threw him an angry glare, the man was a freaking statue, before her eyes lit up and a smile broke free across her face.

"Bingley?", she asked and cocked her head. "Oh, how sweet, do you belong to that illustrious group of men, who call each other solely by their last name?"

She turned her head to the other side, when Charlie (again) started laughing, the professor just lifted his chin and looked down at her with a haughty expression on his face. "I don't understand what seems to be so exhilarating about it."

"Oh don't worry", she assured him laughingly, her eyes flashing. "It's completely normal for you not to a have a clue, what I'm talking about. Something about manly pride and the inability to admit feelings."

"Lizzie", Jane hissed, but she just waved it aside. "As long as you don't call me and Jane, Bennet 1 and Bennet 2, I can live with that."

"Wait a moment", Jane interjected, now standing next to Charlie, one arm around his waist. "Did I understand correctly? I'm Bennet 2?"

Lizzie shrugged. "I'm just way more awesome than you, sorry my dear."

"Hey, I'm the eldest", Jane complained, but couldn't repress the amused smile, that made her lips quiver.

"Awesomeness comes before Age", Lizzie replied with a side glance to Darcy, whose frozen demeanour showed, that he'd rather be anywhere else right now.

"Doesn't it say: Age before beauty?", Jane retorted still smiling (a smile, that was mirrored by Charlie, while Darcy's stony face provided the perfect contrast to those two love birds).

_You should take their picture, put it in some gallery and call it: Happy, Happy and Frustrated_, she mused and smiled when she thought about the faces of hypothetical gallerygoers, when seeing the masterpiece.

"Oh no", she replied. "'Cause then you'd win in both categories and that's just not fair."

"I have to agree with her there", Charlie whispered in Janes ear, having taken control over his laughing fit. "Especially concerning the latter."

Jane's face turned into some interesting shades of red at his declaration, some of which looked distinctly like those of a ripe tomato. _I knew there was a disadvantage to pale skin..._

She cast a quick glance to Darcy, who'd witnessed the scene with a scowl on his face and rolled her eyes inwardly.

"We could take turns", she suggested, while jumping from feet to feet and doing a little dance in the middle of the hallway.

Jane laughed. "Let's go get you a pair of shoes first, Bennet 1."

"Your wish is my command, Bennet 2", Lizzie replied and dropped into a deep curtsy towards Charlie and Darcy before jumping down the hallway behind Jane.

* * *

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Lizzie looked slightly horrified from the patiently smiling face of her sister down to this absolutely murderouspair of HighHeels, Jane held in her hands. "Do you want me to sprain both my ankles?"

"They're not even 7 centimetres high, Lizzie, you'll survive it", Jane assured her. "Look, they have a ribbon in the middle, so you want fall out of them."

"Thanks for the nightmares, Janie", Lizzie muttered, while taking in the silk ribbon (it was blue, like her dress). "Now I'm not just scared about some broken bones, but also about falling out of them and hitting my nose on one of those granite surfaces out there. You know, blood would really ruin this dress..."

"Come on, just put them on", Jane practically begged and looked at her with those bright blue eyes, nobody was able to resist. _No wonder Charlie's putty in your hands, it works with me all the time..._

"Oh fine", Lizzie finally relented, albeit a bit grumpily. "But you pay the doctor's bill, understood?"

"Understood", Jane agreed happily and put a kiss on Lizzies head, before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen.

"The things I do for my sister...", Lizzie murmured, while pressing her feet into the ridiculously high shoes. Exactly as she suspected, the ribbons were of no use at all.

A bit unsteady at first and then more and more confident, she made her way into the living room/kitchen area, where Charlie and Darcy were occupying two of the three sofas.

She dropped into the third one opposite Darcy in a bit unladylike manner and slowly moved her feet. They were still alive, thank goodness.

"You wanna drink something, Lizzie?", Charlie asked and motioned towards the bottles on the low couch table. _Leave it to upper-class-kids to buy the alcohol.._

"Sure", she replied. "What do you got?"

"Let's see... there's whiskey, rum, brandy...", Charlie listed and swung his own glass, filled with an amber coloured liquid.

"Sounds like we're in some highly exclusive gentleman club or something like that...", Lizzie laughed. Darcy and Charlie looked at each other. "Oh my god, we are in a club like that!", she exclaimed, her green eyes wide open.

Charlie laughed. "Sorry, to disappoint you, but yours and Jane's presence just contradicts the premiss."

Lizzie laughed too. "I'm deeply sorry to interfere with your usual Friday evening." She caught the glance of the professor and winked. "No reason to get jealous."

The dark eyes widened barely noticeable at her comment and to her utter astonishment, she saw the muscles in his jaw harden suddenly, as if a dozen gates made of steel were shut down in a matter of seconds. _Okay, that guy definitely has some issues..._

"So what do you want?", Charlie asked and Lizzie tore her gaze away from Darcy.

"Do you've got some coke?", she asked and eyed the rum sceptically.

"Sure", Charlie answered. "Do you need caffeine, or what's up?"

"Caffeine is always needed", Lizzie replied grimacing. "But I fear, without some coke to mix, I won't be able to down any of this stuff." She crinkled her nose. "Really, that's only possible if you take it in shots."

Charlie laughed, Darcy stared. "Should I get you something from the kitchen?"

"Oh yes, please." She looked down at her feet. "I'm still not sure, if I'm going to survive this evening."

"Then why wearing shoes like that?"

Lizzie looked up, surprised that the high and mighty Mr Darcy had actually found his voice and deigned to address her.

"An advice, professor." She leaned a bit forward to face him adequately. "Never question women on their choice of footwear, it could prove to be dangerous."

His expression was blank. "That's now the second advice, you've bestowed upon me, Miss Bennet."

Lizzie sighed. "You should heed it, just like the first one, professor."

He arched an eyebrow and for some reason it irked her immensely, but before she could add something, Charlie was back with the bottle of coke.

She filled the mix into one of the glasses on the table, but stopped before raising it to her lips, staring a bit lost in thought into the dark liquid.

"What's up, Lizzie?", Charlie asked, raising his own glass for a toast.

"Just wondering, if I should rather go for painkillers this evening", she replied, without lifting her gaze from the glass.

"In any case you shouldn't be taking them together with alcohol", Darcy began, the look in his eyes even darker than before.

"Why?", Jane asked innocently, coming out of the kitchen. She balanced a tray with one hand and held a glass of wine with the other, sitting down next to her boyfriend, who immediately put an arm around her shoulders.

"Because otherwise you'll turn your liver into fricassee", Lizzie replied in Darcy's stead, unnerved by his arrogant tone and took a gulp. Painkillers wouldn't suffice in order to survive this evening.

Jane looked from one to the other and then back to Charlie, who just shrugged.

"Oh", she then said tentatively. "That doesn't sound nice."

Darcy rolled his eyes at her reply, something that ignited the angry spark in Lizzie's stomach even further.

"But you're getting drunk faster", she quipped and winked at Charlie and Jane.

"A poor excuse for the fact that you'll need a liver transplantation if you do it on a regular basis." Darcy. Again.

"Calm down, Darcy", Charlie interjected, who'd also witnessed Jane's confused gaze and Lizzie felt a sudden fondness for her sister's boyfriend.

"Don't you worry, professor", she added. "After your little sermon nobody in this room will even _get_ the idea to mix paracetamol with alcohol, less alone _act_ on it."

_And when, it'll be your drink..._

There was an awkward silence for a few moments, only broken sporadically by Charlie's good-natured attempts to create some kind of conversation, when Jane suddenly straightened up and asked Darcy what he'd like to drink. Lizzie looked up, surprised when she realised, that the professor was the only one in their small group without a glass in his hand.

"I don't drink", he said just like she expected him too, with a small frown on his forehead and lips tightly pressed together.

Lizzie laughed. "You should be careful of what you're saying, professor."

His dark eyes fixed themselves on her, his hand clutched the sofa until his knuckles were white.  
"And why is that?", he asked, his voice strained.

"Because you're not really clear in your comments. Did you want to say that you a) are not drinking at all, b) don't drink any alcohol or c) are not thirsty? Life is complicated enough, professor, without cryptic conversations, so don't subject people to decode your sentences, if you can so easily prevent confusion."

"And again you're telling me what to do, Miss Bennet", he replied and his lips contorted into a small smile, that didn't reach his eyes.

"What can I say, professor. You certainly bring out the worst in me." She countered his gaze, eyebrows arched in a provocative manner.

"Darcy doesn't drink any alcohol", Charlie chimed in, while refilling his own glass. "For nearly an eternity now."

"Oh really?" Lizzie's gaze went back to Darcy. "And why the abstinence, if I may ask?"

"You're a med student, Miss Bennet, I think you know everything about the physiological side effects."

"You're an addict?" Her eyebrow, if possible, was raised even higher. Darcy let out something akin to a sigh.

"No, Miss Bennet, and I'd prefer it if you'd let it remain my private affair."

Lizzie cocked her head slightly, as if she needed to think about it. "Fine", she then said, before a small smile tugged on her lips. "But only if you also respect _my_ privacy, Professor."

Darcy stared at her, slightly puzzled as it seemed and didn't directly find words to reply.

Jane and Charlie who'd followed the exchange like some tennis match, looked at them astonished, eyes wide open, before Charlie recovered first.

"You're still addressing each other formally?", he asked incredulously and without much eloquence. Darcy tore his gaze away from Lizzie, who'd fallen back into the cushions with a sigh and made attempts to answer his friend, when the doorbell suddenly rang.

"That must be Caroline", Charlie exclaimed with a quick glance at his watch. "She wanted to be here early to meet Jane."

"I'll go get changed", Darcy announced out of the blue and stood up. His expression was unreadable.

"I'll send her to your bedroom", Charlie joked while making his way towards the door. Darcy didn't reply while walking towards his room in such a hurry, that made Lizzie wonder whether or not "escape" would be the more fitting description.

* * *

She heard Caroline Bingley long before the woman actually entered the living room and even now, two hours later, her voice still droned on and on in her head like a broken record.

There were some things about people, Lizzie Bennet just couldn't stand. On one hand it were smells, beside the obvious candidates such as bad breath and sweat (onions were the third option), she had a distinctive problem with perfumed detergents.

It wasn't really about the exact smell of the detergent (even though jasmine/hyacinth was kind of a strange mix) but moreover about the fact, that it smelled so damn artificial that her nose seemed to contort and she felt like catching a cold (and if there's something med students, or doctors for that matter, really can't stand, it's being ill themselves).

On the other hand it was the really catastrophic taste in music some people seemed to have. Really, if someone wanted to torture her, there wasn't needed much, but a CD-player and a bunch of Techno Slash HipHop Slash Top40radio songs, to drive her mad.

And there was never enough alcohol to survive a party, that consisted of songs like that.

But there was one thing that topped all those detested attributes: Voices.

Every time she had to listen to someone, whose voice ticked her off one way or the other, she needed to refrain from shouting at them to shut the fuck up (she'd gotten a reprimand in primary school when she told a girl, who did a presentation about Elizabeth I with an emotionless, sluggish voice, the very same thing, including of course the four-letter word).

So when Caroline Bingley, a 1,80 metre high, spindly bag of bones with blonde hair and more than one boob-job, stalked in, Lizzie had to physically resist the urge to repeat the action from primary school.

"Hello Daaaaarling", she cried out when catching sight of Jane and blew some kisses with her lipstick covered mouth in the air around Jane's cheeks. "It's sooo niiice to actually get to knoooow you." Batting her eyelashes and with a voice that was in aspects of volume and shrillness comparable to the one of Mrs Bennet (on some really introverted days, Lizzie wondered if her high irritability concerning voices was rooted _there_) Caroline gave Jane the once-over before declaring her "utterly chaaarming" and asking where her dear "Daaarcy" was.

"He escaped", Lizzie explained, before someone else had a chance to answer Caroline's question.

"And you would beee?", the blonde woman asked, slightly appalled, her lips frozen in a form of utter stupidity, which she probably mistook for one resembling a blow-job-motion.

"Elizabeth Bennet", Lizzie declared, somehow feeling the need to introduce herself with her full name for no reason at all. "Jane's little sister."

"How..." Lizzie could see how the gaze of Charlie's sister wandered over her blue silk-dress with the ribbons down to her ribbon laced shoes. "...quaint", she then said and shook Lizzie's hand.

Lizzie shook it, but the look in Caroline's eyes remained cold despite the cheerful laugh and the image of some dead fish sprung to mind.

That had been two hours ago and now the party was in full swing. Darcy had at some point left the confines of his own room only to be immediately glued to an eager Caroline Bingley, who just couldn't leave his arm alone. Lizzie had registered it with an amused grin and deep satisfaction.

The Welcome-Party had evolved from just a small gathering to a fully grown party with music and a dance-floor and to Lizzie's astonishment, with just a little alcohol all those rich and successful business-guys and lawyers acted just like the broken students, she knew from some frat parties.

Meanwhile, Jane made her way through the crowds with some tray or other or was introduced to some of Charlie's friends from work and university. However she was beaming and looking radiant and that nearly, nearly made up for the fact that Lizzie's feet hurt like a motherfucker.

After some dancing she'd called a break, because she just wasn't used to walking around in shoes with such a high heel and so it happened that she overheard a conversation, she probably wasn't supposed to listen to.

"I don't know what you were thinking, Bingley." That was Darcy's voice. Apparently he'd gotten rid of Caroline for a few minutes, because his shadow stood at the other side of the room in between a group of slightly askew looking skeletons in designer robes.

"And I just don't get your problem, pal. It's a great party."

"Exactly. A party. Bingley, you told me it would just be a small gathering, a welcome party for your new _angel_, not such an _event_."

"Ah come on, Darcy. Relax!", Charlie prompted. "Get yourself something to drink and go dancing! I hate seeing you hiding in the corners like some antisocial eremite..."

"You know I don't drink, Charlie, and your sister is engaged at the moment."

"Then go dancing with someone else, old man, but get out of your hole or wherever you dug yourself into, because it's annoying as hell!" Admittedly Charlie's state of mind was at this point due to the frequent refilling of his glass probably not at its best, so therefore his way of expressing himself was not as congenial as usual.

"Don't expect that of me! You know damn well what hell of a punishment it would be for me to dance with someone I'm not acquainted with.!"

_So dancing with Caroline Bingley is therefore a pleasure? _

"So why are you not dancing with Lizzie? She's your student, you know her."

"Exactly, Bingley. She's my student." The derision nearly dripped from his voice.

"She's cute", Charlie quipped.

"She's tolerable at best, but not pretty enough to tempt me. Besides, she's a pain in the ass and it's not up to me to console weeping little girls, who were abandoned by their dance partners."

_Oh thank you very much, Darcy! In which century are you living in?_

"Oh you know, Darcy, there'll be a day when your arrogance will come back to you and bite you in the ass."

"I highly doubt that, Bingley. So now get up and go to your angel, you're wasting your time with me!"

That was it. The whole time during this rather unpleasant exchange she had been standing behind the half open cabinet door, busy with looking through Charlie's iPod for some good music and she'd heard everything. She thought about going over to him and explain to him with all the civility she could muster, that frankly, he was an ass, but then she decided against it and just slammed the door shut, after having modified Charlie's playlist.

Darcy flinched and turned around, looking at her quite aghast, when she flashed him a sarcastic smile and passed by, grinning on her way to the dance floor.

She danced for a while, before her feet started hurting again and she declared to no one in particular, that she needed a drink.

Lizzie didn't notice, that there was someone else in the dimly lit kitchen, until she closed the fridge and turned around to face the counter.

"Darcy, dammit!", she cried out and tried to calm her erratically beating heart, the professor sitting there in the shadows had completely thrown it out of its rhythm.

"Quiet, please", he admonished and took a gulp from his glass. Water, of course, he wasn't drinking anything else.

"Scared your fiancé is going to find you?", she asked with a grin and filled her glass with coke.

"She's not my fiancé!", he practically spat out before smashing his glass back against the granite surface.

"Quiet, professor, or else you're going to be found", she scoffed. "The fact that you're not even asking who I'm talking about, speaks for itself."

"Oh really?", Darcy asked and Lizzie saw that he had pushed the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt back over his elbow. He had nice forearms, even though she had no idea why she actually noticed that.

"Jup, denial is a river in Egypt." He gazed at her and she saw his eyes sparkling in the dark, even though there were of the same shade as the room around them.

"I'm not denying anything", he replied and emphasized each word.

She laughed. "Of course not, professor. Because that would go against everything Kant ever said, wouldn't it?"

"I'm not really an admirer of Kant's philosophy, Miss Bennet." His fingers were tipping rhythmically against the cold surface between them.

"Oh really?" She arched an eyebrow. "Didn't sound like that yesterday."

"I said I'm not admiring him, not that he doesn't have some valid points in his argumentations, Miss Bennet."

"So basically you're just telling me, that you forced us to spend an entire weekend writing an essay about the moral concept of a guy, you think wrote a bunch of complete rubbish in his works?"

"I didn't say that", he answered rather defensively.

"No, but you're going to do so after we have thrown an entire weekend out of the window for that Sisyphean labour!" Now she was really getting angry.

"I think we need to have some rules for this arrangement", the professor remarked instead of an answer, while clutching his glass of water.

"You think so?", she asked sarcastically.

"Yes, like Bingley said, we're still addressing each other formally and that could be awkward in the long turn."

"Really?", she asked, sarcasm still dripping from her voice.

"I think we could both agree on dividing private and work related issues. If we're seeing each other outside of university, I'm not your professor and therefore you don't need to address me as such."

"And what am I going to call you instead?", Lizzie asked doubtfully.

Darcy shrugged. "William is a possibility, but Darcy would suffice, I reckon."

"Fine, Darcy it is."

He managed something akin to a smile and nodded. "And how am I going to call you? Lizzie perhaps?"

She cocked her head slightly, as if she needed time to think about it.

"Nah, I don't think so", she finally said, coincidentally at exact the same time a new song started (one of her favourites, which she found to her utter astonishment on Charlie's iPod).

_There might be something outside your window, but you'll just... never know..._

Darcy looked at her confused.

"And why however not, if I may ask?"

Lizzie shrugged. "Because only the guys I sleep or am friends with call me that. Since we're neither of the two, I suggest you stay with "Miss Bennet"."

He pulled his head back, his face an unreadable mask. Lizzie grinned and grabbed her glass, which was still half full.

_And if my velocity starts to make you sweat... than just don't let go... _

"You haven't forgotten that I'm "tolerable at best"?" She leaned in slightly, eyes fixed on his.

_And if the heaven ain't got a vacancy... then we just get up and go!_

"So after having cleared that, I'm going to get up and get drunk, okay? Without fearing that it might influence my mark, are we clear on that one?"

She came closer. "Because that's our deal, Darcy. Work and Private divided, you have no idea what I'm doing outside of Uni and it's not going to influence in any way the way you evaluate me, right?"

The professor just looked at her, his expression one of ice. She smiled and got up.

"Have fun with your fiancé!", she said before running back towards the dance floor and losing herself in a mix of light, bodies and music.

_I can't slow down, I won't be waiting for you! I can't stop now, because I'm dancing!_

She stuck out her tongue. Figuratively of course. Take that, you meanie!

* * *

**A/N: So I hoped it amused you at least a bit;) I just love Lizzie/Darcy interaction and there will be lots of it in this story, because nothing is as amusing as misunderstandings when you're actually talking to each other;)  
**

**So the next chapter is ready and should be up in the next few days, if this betaing issue doesn't resolve itself I'll post it uncorrected, so all mistakes are mine and mine alone so get out your tomatoes and start the battle! I tried my best;)**

**So Lizzie is a bit... tough... you could say, but she is the way she is for a reason, I'm not going to defend that, just stick it out with me and you'll know why.**

**Hmm, my break is soon over and I'm in no mood to travel back to Uni, four hours stuck in a train are just too long *whines a bit* I think I wanted to say something about this chapter but other than the random fact that I TOO have a major problem with perfurmed detergents (as does my ma, so that's probably genetically determined;) Really I get the creeps if someone forces me to wear something that has its own smell, grr, my grannie's detergent is the worst... either way that's probably my shadow and if you want to share your story about detergents: Please review, I live for those and if you make me laugh, I'll be more inclined to update, cause I'm a bit sulky at the moment :(**

**Love ya all!**


	4. Chapter 3 Of Robots and Lollies

**A/N: So what did I promise you? :D here's the next chapter, the beta issue resolved itself and while this one is still uncorrected (so bear with me and my mistakes, I promise, I'll try to get better, but writing in english is for me like drawing with a really thick pair of gloves on my hands, it's a bit indirect,and even though I learned a lot about english culture and slang through media, it feels at times like I'm mixing my school Oxford english, together with a tad American english (because we kept mixing literature in school;) and a lot of german expressions, anyway I'll quit rambling because here comes the important stuff:**

**IMPORTANT!**

**1) Here comes the part where translation becomes quite difficult. When writing the first chapters, I didn't think about translating it into english, so I didn't consider that. However, at the end of the last chapter, Darcy asked Lizzie not to address him formally when they meet in private and while Lizzie accepted the offer, she refused him the same favour, so he still calls her Miss Bennet.**

**Anyway: In German as in French there is a different form of address formally/informally which is evident in the pronoun (remember in french it's tu/vous in german du/Sie). A lot of english/german translations fail at this point because while in english only the form of address changes (Lizzie or Miss Bennet) it's more evident in german because of the pronoun. So in this story it's kind of a running gag that he has to address her formally all the time while her way of addressing changes depending on the situation and it characterizes their relationship indirectly all of the time. This kind of gets lost in the translation because she STILL calls him "professor" a lot, so you have to keep in mind, the difference in address until the point where she allows him to call her differently:) If you have any suggestions to make this fact more prominent (because I'm pretty sure, you're more adept at english than I am) tell me!**

**2) To understand this chapter a bit better (and it wouldn't do not to know what Lizzie and Darcy are arguing about:) I advise you to listen to Regina Spektors "Samson" and also to "School is out" even though that's not that important.**

**3) I put in the title of an album somewhere in the dialogues of this chapter, I really like the band and that album especially, if you get it, I'll think about a reward ;) take it as a challenge!**

**Anyway: "Samson" is on the surface about the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, they were a couple and he was known for his physical strenght, in order to kill him they ordered Delilah to find about its source, which was his hair. So she betrayed him and cut it one night, which made him lose all his strenght and he was a slave to his enemies until his hair grew back and he killed them all, so you see, not a pleasant story. They're also different analyses but nothing's for sure and it's all very debatable, so perfect material;)  
**

**END IMPORTANT!**

**Soundtrack: Regina Spektor - Samson (Lyrics in Italics, NOT MINE!) and School is Out**

**Disclaimer: Duh, I'm studying Psychology for Fudge's sake, I probably wouldn't do that, if I was Jane Austen, would I?**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Of Robots and Lollies with Lemon Flavour **

The first thing she heard, when she drifted back to consciousness, was the music.

For a moment she was tempted to yell at Charlotte through the thin wall of their apartment to shut her fucking radio up, until it occurred to her that the music flowing into the room didn't really match Charlotte's typical repertoire.

It was piano music.

Lizzie groaned, trying to somehow process the newly gained information, when she suddenly noticed that she wasn't in her own apartment and that it was therefore extremely absurd, not to mention pointless to blame Charlotte for the music.

Extremely pointless in fact.

She remembered her discussion with Darcy from last night, even the memory made her groan with annoyance and turn over in those smooth silk sheets.

Wait a moment... silk sheets?

Tentatively Lizzie opened one eye and discovered to her utter astonishment that she'd apparently slept in between light blue silk sheets.

Okay that definitely crossed out the possibility of being somewhere in her own apartment. Lizzie couldn't remember ever having bought silk sheets in her entire life (she thought them as silly as see-through lace bras).

On the other hand the colour assured her that she was in fact not in some guy's bedroom, which was a slight consolation and another look under the ridiculously soft blanket confirmed that she was still, thank goodness, wearing her T-Shirt and undergarments.

Now a voice started to accompany the piano music, Lizzie sat up abruptly and noticed that she was a) apparently in one of Jane and Charlie's guest rooms and that b) she knew that song.

On a stool next to the queen-sized bed she found her clothing from yesterday neatly folded and she put it on hastily before making her way to the living room/kitchen area, which seemed to be the source of the softly flowing music.

She turned around the corner and nearly jumped back, when she saw who was occupying the breakfast table.

"Good morning", said Darcy stiffly, when catching sight of her and looked up from his newspaper. _The Independent, _surprise, surprise!

"Morning", Lizzie muttered, grateful for being quick-witted enough to have put on some decent clothing before venturing out of the bedroom, even though she would have liked to see the look on the professor's face if she'd turned up in T-Shirt and undergarments.

"Where are Jane and Charlie?", she asked and looked around the empty kitchen.

He checked his watch. "Still asleep", he replied, before focusing again on the newspaper in his hand.

If she'd been slightly more awake, she probably would've asked him if he'd actually attributed that to the time of day, but judging from the way her brain felt like in the middle of her head, she was definitely not awake enough.

Wavering a bit, she stood in the middle of the kitchen, the bright sunlight streaming through the windows, too violent for her taste and wondered if it was too late to go back to bed and pretend this awkward run-in never happened.

Darcy looked up, surprised to see her standing there.

"Coffee?", he asked and gestured towards the coffee pot in front of him. Lizzie thought, she'd probably made an impression of extreme stupidity on him, because he was looking at her with an expression on his face, that could be constructed as concerned if not for the fact that it was Darcy, she faced at the moment.

"Sure", Lizzie said, because she couldn't think of a better reply and she was in dire need of caffeine. She grabbed a cup from the highest shelve of the cupboard – something only 1,80 metre tall giants can come up with: placing the important stuff out of reach for dwarfs like herself – and seated herself opposite Darcy.

"Not a morning person?" Lizzie looked up only to find Darcy staring at her. Self-consciously she wriggled a bit under his intense gaze and pulled her sweatshirt more tightly around her body.

"No", she said and then, _thank goodness_, he broke the eye-contact to get back to his newspaper.

They were silent for a while. Lizzie pulled her knees to her chest, she'd forgotten to put on socks and started humming along the lines of the song that was playing at the moment.

"You know that song?", the professor asked and again she felt his eyes on her.

"Yes", she replied, she wouldn't let him intimidate her and stop singing just for the sake of not satisfying his arrogance.

He was still looking at her and she noticed he wore the same dress shirt as yesterday evening – did he buy those things _en_ _masse_?

She sighed inwardly. "I didn't know Charlie had Regina Spektor on his iPod." Lizzie couldn't believe she hadn't come across it yesterday.

"He doesn't."

Now it was her turn to stare at him. "Care to elaborate?", she asked with a raised eyebrow.

He groaned slightly and sat up. "My iPod", he then said as if it was a kind of big deal to reveal such personal information.

She laughed shortly before burying her nose in her coffee mug. "I never took you for a Regina Spektor fan."

He gazed at her out of those brooding dark eyes and she wondered if she should be afraid right now.

"My sister", he said. Lizzie snorted.

"Believe it or not, professor, but two words are just not enough to make an informative sentence."

He didn't care to reply but folded his newspaper neatly together and she wondered if she'd _finally_ managed to scare him away.

But no such luck, he stayed put and possible or not, his gaze became even more intense. Goodness, they should recruit him for the X-Men-team, he could replace that funny guy with the sun glasses.

"She copied the playlist on my iPod and believe it or not, Miss Bennet, I'm thoroughly enjoying the music."

Instead of raising her hands in defeat and surrender, like he probably wished her to, she just grinned.

"_School is out_?", she asked, offering some kind of truce.

He nodded and seemed to relax a bit. "_Samson_ is her favourite song."

Lizzie nodded in agreement, even though she felt like one of those figures, you could buy of baseball players, whose heads always dangled forth and back.

"Yeah...", she said slowly. "That song brought me to the musician."

Now it was his turn to raise an eyebrow. "How so?", he asked while reaching for his mug.

"I did some research on a paper about the psychological aspects of cancer treatment, among other things it was also about how relatives cope with death and the suffering of a beloved person and the interactive process that takes place between the sufferer and the witness."

"So you think the song is about cancer?" He raised his chin and the sun streaming in through the windows painted his profile in heavy contrasts.

He was really good-looking, she thought, in a dark and mysterious kind of way. His nose was slightly askew and she wondered if someone had broken it.

_Why does that not surprise me?_

Suddenly Lizzie noticed that she was now the one staring and that he still seemed to be waiting for an answer.

"Of course", she replied, irritated by the fact that his looks could distract her so.

"And what about the biblical story of Delilah and Samson? It could also be about her apparent betrayal, only told from another perspective. She says, history forgot about them and that the bible didn't mention them, which could be an indicator that Delilah didn't actually betray Samson, but that it was consensual."

She raised an eyebrow, she'd never heard him talk so much at once and he held one of her lectures for fuck's sake.

"For someone claiming it to be his sister's favourite song, you know an awful lot about its background", she declared teasingly.

"So you agree with me?", he asked, way too arrogant for her taste.

"No", she replied and the taunting smile again flickered across her lips.

"And why ever not?"

"Because I think it's more of a metaphor", she explained and sipped on her coffee.

"In how far?"

"I think, she wants to say that nobody can tell from the outside how a relationship works. People judge, put the blame on somebody and possibly forget the crucial part of the story. History is told by the winners not the ones who loose and nobody is just a secondary character in someone else's story, placed there to fill in the role of the evil one."

She shuddered and his eyes seemed to take in every single motion.

"People are not bad, because their choices are bad, we're more than our surface reveals and as unfair as it is to give someone the role of the villain, because of his actions, it is even more unfair to call someone the victim, just because he or she couldn't fight back. It does not make them an innocent."

She shook her head, twirling a curl between her fingers.

In the song, he seems to be the strong one of the two, he tells her she did it right cutting his hair and he is the one to kiss her. He is not a victim even if he dies in the end."

Lost in thought she stared out of the window for a moment, before her face brightened up considerably.

"Anyway, she said as much in an interview, that it was about a friend of her who died because of cancer." She shrugged and missed the sudden smile on Darcy's lips.

"And did that information influence the way you evaluated the song, Miss Bennet?"

She glanced at him. "No", she said, brow furrowed. "In my opinion, the part, which says: _"Samson went back to bed; not much hair left on his head; he ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed", _makes the point pretty clear."

He nodded. "But perhaps you were prejudiced because you came across that song in the middle of your research about cancer."

She sat up, bringing the mug a bit too loud back down on the surface of the wooden table, a discord, that seemed to completely change the atmosphere in the room and she she looked at him with bright, flaring eyes.

"So you think my interpretation is based on _Anchoring_?!"

"Possibly", he replied tersely. She was on the verge of saying something decidedly _rude_, abusing not only his intellect, his arrogance but also some physical attributes, which were _clearly_ off limits, considering he was her professor, when the sound of feet shuffling over floor retrieved her from the depths of Darcy's eyes.

"Good morning!", Jane cried out happily, clad in jeans and a white tank-top, an air of sunshine and rainbows surrounding her.

Lizzie, who'd always believed her sister to be some kind of Disney-princess, just closed her eyes against the bright exuberance and Darcy, who seemed to be as blinded by her sister's cheerfulness hid himself behind his newspaper, taking his coffee mug with him in his refuge.

Only Charlie, who'd followed Jane into the kitchen like a long lost puppy stared in awe at this miracle creature in front of him, as if she'd suddenly appeared out of some pink, sparkling haze.

"Who wants breakfast?", she asked and practically _danced_ towards the fridge. Charlie answered in the affirmative and got over to help her, while Darcy's negative answer was announced by the rustling of the newspaper pages.

"Lizzie?", Jane asked, appearing with a handful of fruits and a carton of milk from behind the door of the fridge.

Lizzie raised her mug and with a final glare towards Darcy, of whom only his hands were left as a reminder of his physical presence, she created as much distance between the two of them as possible.

"Do you've got some cereal here?", she asked her sister and tried to catch a glimpse of the fridge's contents. Jane laughed and opened a cupboard several inches above Lizzie's head and the reaching area of her hands for that matter.

"Hey, you can't show me Choco Crispies and then deny me my favourite meal!", she bristled at the obvious unfairness and pouted, arms crossed defiantly in front of her chest, when her attempts at reaching the carton through jumping turned out fruitless.

"Give me two seconds and some access to the shelve and I'll get them for you, sweetie", Jane offered with an amused smile while watching her younger sister.

"Grr", Lizzie made. "Tall people are unfair." She heard Charlie chuckling into his cornflakes – he went for the "no sugar, no fun" – cereal alternative, something Lizzie would never, never allow anywhere near her breakfast, you could just as well eat sand for that matter.

"I think you're in the minority right now", he muttered, obviously amused by the glances, Lizzie threw those shelves.

She grabbed the milk and filled her bowl. "Technically Jane doesn't count. Believe it or not, but we were of the same size until she reached the glorious age of sixteen."

Jane laughed and took a seat next to Charlie at the kitchen counter. "True, people always thought we were twins because of that."

"Sounds cute", Charlie whispered in Jane's ear, who blushed a delicate shade of pink. Lizzie had to suppress her gag reflex when looking at this we're-just-dripping-happiness-ridiculously-giddy-couple and restricted herself to a spoon full of milk and cereal as a mean of compensation.

"But you're not at all alike", Darcy interjected, who apparently had crawled out of his hole behind the newspaper.

Lizzie grinned, while making noises with the spoon against the porcelain. "You said as much yesterday, Darcy. No need to repeat yourself." He looked at her slightly confused, but she kept eating her cornflakes and didn't care to elaborate.

"You're aware that this...", he looked at the chocolate flakes, that were swimming in a sea of milk, with distaste, "...stuff... consists of ninety percent sugar and flavour enhancer, aren't you?"

Lizzie rolled her eyes. "I thought you teach ethics, not nutritional science."

He observed her over the rim of his newspaper. "And you are studying medicine, you should know what these ingredients do to your body."

She arched an eyebrow. "Because coffee without any substantial breakfast is _so_ much healthier?"

She could hear Charlie laughing again in his cereal bow. "Uh, she got you, Darcy, old man."

Jane looked equally amused from one to the other, while cutting fruits and mixing them with oat flakes. Lizzie risked rolling her eyes again. As much as she rejoiced in setting him straight, the professor seriously got on her nerves.

"She didn't, Bingley", Darcy replied icily and turned a page.

"So, pray tell me, how do you call it, Darcy, when you're crushingly defeated?", Lizzie cried out, gesticulating wildly with the spoon in her hand, a wide grin on her face.

"Wilful misunderstanding", he retorted tersely, without looking up.

"Oh, you hurt me!" She pressed a hand on that part of her chest, where she knew (thanks to an awful lot of anatomy classes as a freshman) the heart was actually located and dramatically fell back in her chair, tearing Darcy for at least a moment away from his newspaper and forcing him to look up and take in the show in front of him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you always this theatrical, Miss Bennet?", he asked, while she peeped under her lashes over to her audience to see their reaction – Jane and Charlie had followed the show with great amusement.

"Lizzie has always been that way", Jane interjected quickly, as if she'd seen her sisters gaze. "I still remember one day, she came home from school, fell onto the sofa and declared vociferously in front of Mom and her crocheting club that she was going to die."

"Oh", came out of Charlie's mouth and he nearly dropped the spoon. "What happened?"

"As it turned out, Mr Hammond from the sweet shop had decided to quit selling Skittles, because he read about some of its apparently dangerous ingredients."

Lizzie snorted while Charlie started laughing. "That was all?"

"Hey, that was pretty bad!", Lizzie interjected, slightly offended and sat up straight.

"Yeah", Jane laughed. "And the faces of those ladies were absolutely priceless, they all thought she was really going to die and asked Mom if she had cancer or something like that. Our poor mother had no idea what to do..."

"Oh I know what she did", Lizzie murmured and rubbed her left ear absent-mindedly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Darcy had caught the motion and hastily dropped her hand.

"And what happened then?", Charlie desired to know, watching his laughing angel closely.

"Oh Dad went grocery shopping with Lizzie and they bought a month's ration of Skittles."

"And lollies with lemon flavour!", Lizzie added, swaying her spoon through the air. "I still remember that..."

"Yeah and I remember you having two big holes in your teeth next time we visited the dentist", Jane retorted good-naturedly. Lizzie grimaced. "Must have blocked that out."

"Is that the reason why you're studying medicine, Lizzie?", Charlie asked. "So that you can become a dentist and help others to eat lollies with lemon flavour?"

Lizzie shook her head vehemently. "Fuck no!", she exclaimed and looked horrified at her sister's boyfriend.

"Lizzie is afraid of dentists", Jane prompted, while Charlie helplessly looked from one Bennet-sister to the other. "She thinks, they're part of some huge conspiracy and want to turn all of us into lifeless robots."

"Hey, have you ever seen the people at a dentist's surgery?", she asked with a sullen expression on her face.

Charlie leaned in, an amused smile playing on his lips. "Just for the sake of it, I'm going to say: No, I haven't." He cocked his head. "What do the people in a dentist's surgery look like, Lizzie?"

She also cocked her head, looked from Jane to Charlie before a smile appeared on her face and lit up the green in her eyes. "Like Darcy", she exclaimed, before she started laughing in her bowl of cereal.

The professor looked up from his newspaper a tad bewildered, when not only Lizzie but also Jane and Charlie burst out laughing.

"And why do they look like Darcy?", Charlie asked in between two laughing fits and coughed oat flakes, Jane patted him on the back. "Lizzie?"

Lizzie raised an eyebrow, before nodding towards the dark-haired man in their kitchen, who alternately gazed at her or Charlie questioningly, as if asking "Isn't that obvious?".

"Who looks like me?", the professor asked exasperated.

"Robots", Charlie managed to get out with a cough. Darcy's face turned into stone. "Absolutely not."

"Oh, don't worry, Darcy", Lizzie interjected. "You're not looking like one of those who work in a dentist's surgery."

Again he arched an eyebrow. "And why not?"

She grinned. "Because they look happy." He pressed his lips tightly together.

"And I do not?"

Charlie coughed, while trying to suppress another laughing fit and Jane, busy with saving her boyfriend from near suffocation, seemed way too happy for an excuse not to look at Darcy and answer his question.

"Sorry, Darcy", Lizzie answered with a giggle. "But you've got more resemblance with the ones, who leave the surgery afterwards."

"And that would be...?"

"Robots."

He stared at her, while she was busy eating her Choco Crispies, as if he was waiting for her to elaborate her statement. Which she didn't and he hid again behind his newspaper, conveniently at the same time, when Caroline made her entrance, stalking into the kitchen in an air of perfume and self-adulation.

Lizzie glanced at her and her lips quivered, when she noticed that Caroline's outfit was indeed extremely scanty (she wore nothing more than a thin, peach-coloured nightgown under her silk robe, which, including the lace trimming, barely covered her ass) but that her make-up and hair were immaculately done.

"Good morning all together", she greeted and Lizzie grimaced at the sound of her voice – it hadn't improved overnight. Caroline leaned in to kiss Jane and Charlie on the cheek (no bad breath on mornings apparently) and tried the same thing with Darcy. Accidentally or not, Lizzie wasn't sure about that, she only met the newspaper.

But Caroline was not to be put off and leaned in further, showing that underneath that sheer rag of lace, she wore everything but a bra and finally forced Darcy to look at her

"Good morning, William", she whispered and batted her eyelashes. He didn't say anything, but swallowed rather obviously.

"Good morning, Caroline", he finally said and held up his newspaper as some kind of shield. The receiver of this rather reluctant greeting rose from her scandalous position and flashed Lizzie a triumphant smile, before walking over to the kitchen.

Lizzie continued eating in a placid manner, while Caroline's horror-stricken scream echoed throughout the kitchen.

"Charles, you can't be serious! Don't you have anything remotely healthy here?"

"If you're talking about your macrobiotic heap of a breakfast, then no, Caroline", her brother replied calmly. This seemed to horrify Caroline even more, because she just couldn't eat "Nothing" for breakfast, even though Lizzie thought that this was normally exactly her custom.

The blonde sent glances Darcy's way in an attempt to seek his help, but it wasn't the professor to rescue her in her distress but Jane, who offered Caroline a bowl with fruits.

She accepted the offer reluctantly and placed herself and the bowl delicately on the table right in front of Darcy and with her back to Lizzie, who just snorted and escaped the lovely view of Caroline's backside in favour of a better perspective from the kitchen counter.

"Oh William", the blonde breathed, just when Lizzie had placed herself cross-legged on the counter, next to Jane and Charlie, who, well-behaved as they were, sat on their chairs behind it. She saw how the barely clad woman bent over the the edge of the newspaper and tried to feed Darcy some grapes. "Did you already eat something today?"

"Yes, thank you very much, Caroline", he snapped and with a shake of his newspaper, he whisked away the perfectly manicured hand together with the declined fruit.

Lizzie attempted to say something but caught Charlie's warning glance out of the corner of her eye and refused to disturb the scene in front of them.

Darcy's obvious dismissal of her attentions did nothing to dampen Caroline's spirit. With her bare feet she traced the curve of his leg up to his knee and further up his thigh. She leaned in lasciviously, hoping to catch the professor's eye while her feet travelled further north.

Darcy's only reaction consisted of discretely scooting away with his chair, so suddenly that Caroline _nearly_ lost her balance and fell over and head first onto the floor.

But fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on the way one judged concussions and shoulder dislocations) the blonde rearranged herself, truly discomposed this time and the faces of Lizzie and Charlie, who nearly burst with laughter, angered her even further.

"Oh Eliza!", she cried out, a cat like grin on her face (she really looked like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland), while Jane fed Charlie pieces of tangerines to keep him from laughing, which brought the poor guy again on the brink of suffocation.

"Yes, _Carol_", Lizzie replied, trying to mimic the professor's way of talking and looked up from her bowl of cereal.

"That guy at the party yesterday... the one you danced with so... _intimately_...", she emphasized the word and was accompanied by a rustle of the newspaper. Seemed like Darcy was still alive. "Who was that?"

"A Robot", was Lizzie's sole answer before putting another spoonful of cereal in her mouth. She faintly remembered the guy, Caroline was talking about, he'd brought her a lot of drinks and talked about his absolutely _wonderful_ profession.

"Oh Lizzie don't say that!", Jane interjected, after saving Charlie effectively from a rather unpleasant death. "You can't just go around and call everybody a robot!"

"You mean _randomly_?", she quipped, her eyes sparkling before turning serious again. "But it's true for him. He owns a dentist's surgery in the city centre."

"Which one of your friends is that again, Charles?", Caroline asked, obviously thrilled to have found a topic unpleasant to _Eliza_.

"Jimmy", her brother replied. "He has taken over his Dad's practice last year."

"Oh, Jimmy, of course! Pray, Eliza, did you have a good time?" Her eyes were brimming with glee.

"One can put it that way", Lizzie deadpanned. "He wanted to show me his little Jimmy."

This statement was accompanied with a horrified gasp from Jane, a similar sound from Charlie and a sudden cough behind the newspaper.

Caroline however seemed to practically burst with excitement. "Aaaand?", she asked and leaned in conspiratorially, unintentionally revealing deep insights into her cleavage, which made Jane and Charlie blush simultaneously.

But Lizzie just grinned and pointed into the air with her spoon. "See, Caroline, the thing is, that I'm not really interested in "little"."

This effectively shut up the whole room and even the man behind the newspaper, who, if she was not mistaken, held the pages a little _too_ tightly.

Not that it mattered to her anyway.

"Oh", was all that came out of Caroline's mouth, which was stained with cherry red lipstick – _who the hell wears lipstick before breakfast? _- and frozen in the motion, before she composed herself and a sarcastic smile grazed her features.

"I never thought you to be someone like... _that_, Eliza."

Lizzie reciprocated the grin in the same manner and pointed at Caroline's nightgown.

"Oh I think you pretty much matched my expectations, Carol."

The grin on the blonde's face faltered a little and it was only due to Jane's attempts at polite conversation that the breakfast didn't end in icy silence.

"What's planned for today, Lizzie?", Charlie asked, when everybody had finished eating and Lizzie was ready to depart. Darcy still hid behind his newspaper, neither caring about washing up nor about Caroline's endless chattering.

"Working", Lizzie replied and put her bowl into the dish washer. "I have to finish my Ethics-essay and a friend of mine is doing a psychological study with an EEG and she asked me to help her."

"What a pity", Charles replied. "We'd hoped you had time to go shopping for furniture with us after Jane's job interview. Even Darcy is coming."

She waved it aside, grateful for the excuse not to spend her day with robot 1 and robot 2. "I'm sorry Charles, but I've got a lot to do for Uni and Charlotte is now for more than 24 hours alone and that is always dangerous."

"Oh, it can't be that much surely", Charlie retorted while putting some spoons in the dishwasher before closing it and pressing start.

"It is", she simply said. "Ask your friend over there." She pointed at Darcy.

"_He_ dumbed all that work on you?", Charlie asked surprised before turning around to Darcy. "Hey, old man, can't you make an exception for her?"

The professor appeared rather indignantly from behind his newspaper, while effectively managing to stay out of Caroline's way, whose head dangled rather dangerously forth and back. "I'm sorry to say, Bingley, but Tuesday is deadline. If Miss Bennet hadn't been procrastinating so far, she wouldn't find herself in this situation now."

"Darcy, don't be such an-", Charlie started, but Lizzie cut him off. "Hey, professor, the thing I did in the meantime...", she raised her chin provocatively, "It's called a social life."

Charlie laughed and Lizzie patted him encouragingly on the back. "Don't you worry, Charlie, it's useless to try and get him to take a breath like we mere mortals do." She winked and Charlie laughed delightedly.

She turned around to Jane and hugged her tightly. "See you soon, Janie. Promise to call me as soon as you're out of that job interview, okay?"

Her sister nodded in affirmation and Lizzie pressed a kiss on her cheek before grabbing her bag on her way to the door. But before leaving she turned around one last time, as if she'd forgotten something and with a look to Jane and a nod towards the professor, who was watching her with dark eyes and a scowl, she laughed with a twinkle in her eye: "Definetely Type 2, Janie", before she disappeared.

* * *

**A/N: Wasn't that fun? I really like this chapter, especially because of Caroline;) Don't worry there will be a lot of her, even though the next three chapters will focus more on Craig, Charlotte and ... Anne (I love Anne;), number 5 will be a bit different in tone but it will explain the africa-thing;)  
**

**The next one should be up in a few days, as always please REVIEW! and find the album reference;) love ya all!**


	5. Chapter 4 Chinese

**A/N: Okay, I'm still overwhelmed by the really, really positive feedback I received since posting this story, so I'll take the time to thank all those people who read, reviewed, followed or favourited this story, you're awesome!;)**

**To answer some questions: **

**Amy: The question about "type 2" is answered at the end of this chapter;) thank you a lot for your suggestions, I'll keep it in mind;)**

**cutelilmochi: Darcy eavesdropping makes all the fun in the last chapter;) but he's not bipolar, only a bit arrogant;) and you're right about the being friends part, especially because Lizzie is not one to open up easily, her heart and mind are like fort knox or something, it'll do for a lot of misunderstanding;)**

**dizzy-lizzy60: that's for you to find out;)**

**The Rabbit: Sadly not, albeit it's a good guess;)**

**So last time's album reference was "The Sufferer and The Witness" by Rise Against (it's in the part where Lizzie talks about her research paper;) the album is great by the way.**

**So we're reaching the AU part, this is a preparation for the next chapter, which should be up in the next few days, and yay, we're meeting Craig and Charlotte (you're going to find out about the matches and why Lizzie confiscated them;)**

**Soundtrack: The Manic - Amarante **

**Disclaimer: Jane Austen was on this years calendar about strong women, so I would REALLY like to be her;) Sadly, I'm not...**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Chinese solves everything... I promise!**

Stairs were the lemons in Lizzie's life.

Already as a three-year old with a head of frizzy curls, freckles and bruised knees she'd stood on top of the staircase at home with the creaky wooden boards, staring questioningly down the crooked steps, while chewing on a fingernail.

It wasn't because the purpose of a staircase didn't make sense to her, even at three years of age she was bright enough to understand the principle of connecting two levels, even though she probably would've phrased it differently.

No, there was something about these steps, that disturbed her greatly.

Perhaps it was the way her father always pounded up the stairs, so loud that it could be heard throughout the house, perhaps it was the hasty up and down scurrying of her mother, when she was running through the house like a headless chicken, perhaps it was even Jane's angelic grace, with which she moved over the steps, Little Lizzie wasn't so sure about that, but something about these steps and the way the other members of her family were using them bothered her immensely.

So if life gives you lemons,you make lemonade out of them. Or in Lizzie's case: some kind of bouncing competition about the many ways you can jump down a staircase – she accomplished sixty-seven, until Mama Bennet sent her to her room to "stop this madness", as she put it.

But she hadn't stopped. Until this day she jumped or bounced or danced down every staircase, she encountered, even if it just meant skipping the last three to five steps of a landing – Lizzie Bennet jumped.

This behaviour earned her a lot of curious glances and comments over the years, including many nervous fits from her mother, but she never ceased doing so – something about staircases irked her and that was her way of conquering them.

So when on this one sunny Saturday morning she finally closed the front door to Charlie's apartment with a relieved sigh and saw the spacious stairwell with the giant windows and broad steps, she just couldn't stop smiling.

It started with an innocent little hop, just one step but she landed safely on one foot and the smile on her face grew even wider. Then two steps at the same time, then backwards the last three of the landing and the other four storeys followed suit in the same manner until she finally stepped out and into the bright October sun, where Craig's car was waiting for her.

She was jolly glad, when she turned around the key and the motor actually started working, even though she would have liked to see Darcy's face, when the little junker was still there at his departure.

The car wheezed and growled when she pressed the gas pedal and slowly pulled out into the traffic and the chaos, that was London's city centre.

She loved the city, loved it since the first time she'd stranded here at age eighteen. She loved the old houses, the people in the tube and that on every second corner there was a park or a coffee shop to be found.

Her parents disliked the city and especially her father, who detested crowds and liked to hole himself up in his study, never set foot here or anywhere else, where the population exceeded the one in his study, including Meryton.

Sometimes she asked herself if that was the reason she'd chosen the the most populous city in the European Union as her home, but those moments passed as soon as they came, just the blink of an eye, if you brushed them aside with a laugh.

It nearly took an hour in this traffic chaos to find back to the apartment, she shared with Charlotte, but she just laughed while drumming with her hands on the steering wheel just in time to the music, let the sunlight dance on her skin and gave the guy in the black BMW the finger, when he cut her at the crossroad.

It was nearing midday when she finally reached home, _Philip's_ was still closed and the dark windows gazed like tiredly squinted eyes at the street in front of them.

Craig was already waiting for her with his arms crossed in front of his chest, clad in boxers with little hearts printed on the cotton and a Superman-T-Shirt, standing on the top of the steps leading to the front door of the apartment building, a pair of flip-flops on his feet to save them from the cold stone.

Lizzie smiled brightly, when she saw him and stopped right in front of him. He looked down on her, an eyebrow raised, the blonde curls falling in his face or standing up around his head like some kind of halo.

"Hi", she said, still beaming and hid the keys to the car behind her back. "What a beautiful day, don't you think, Craig?"

"Lizzie", he growled.

"And so sunny! Honestly, you wouldn't think it to be October already! Did you look at the thermometer today? Feels like spring to me... Look!", she lifted one arm. "I'm only wearing a T-Shirt under the sweatshirt and these leggings are not exactly thick and still it's so warm that I..."

"Lizzie..."

"And not a cloud to be seen! Really, Craig, when was the last time that happened? We definitely need to have a picnic today, the weather is just _perfect_, or we could all go to Philip's later today, it's Cocktail-evening and Marley said, it'll be awesome..."

"Lizzie!" This time he nearly bellowed her name and she ceased talking but the grin on her face grew even wider.

"Yes, Craig?"

"Where are my keys?" He squinted his eyes so that the green of the iris was nearly undetectable.

"Your keys?", she asked, as if he'd just said something completely absurd.

"Yes, my keys. For my car, Lizzie. Silver, black a Donald-Duck-pendant. Have you seen them, accidentally of course?"

"Hmm", Lizzie said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Donald-Duck-pendant you say? I've seen those... I think they sell them at Piccadilly Circus, if you want to buy one of them... but honestly, Craig... Donald-Duck? Isn't Mickey Mouse way more awesome? Or Minnie? Goofy? Pluto? I'm more a fan of Disney-princesses myself, Belle and Mulan are great, Cinderella less but still better than Sleeping Beauty with..."

"Lizzie Bennet, have you -"

"- seen your keys? Hmm... Have you seen Charlotte today? Is she still alive? She's now alone for 24 hours and you know that can be dangerous... I mean, did you turn on the smoke detector? Just in case, you never know what she's up to and if she gets into her head to bake some cookies..."

"Lizzie, my keys, my car..."

"Oh, you mean these?" With a mock surprised expression on her face she held up the bunch of keys.

"Fuck, of course, Lizzie. What do you think am I talking about the whole time?" He made attempts to snatch the keys from her, but she was faster and retreated a step or two, shaking her head disapprovingly.

"That's not the way it works, Craig." She rattled the keys in front of his face.

"Lizzie, give me my keys this moment! You can't just kidnap my car, if you so please and-" He made another move but she was again faster.

"Kidnap? What are you talking about? I rang the bell, politely as I am and asked pleasantly, mind you, and you gave them to me!"

"I was stoned, Lizzie and you knew that!" He was now towering over her dangerously and even though Craig was at least two heads taller than her and twice her weight., Lizzie was evidently faster and not in the least intimidated.

"I told you time and time again that you should keep your fingers away from that shit, Craig. Don't make me accountable if you're certifiably insane!"

He looked at her, brow furrowed while grasping like a clumsy bear with his claws for the keys in her hand. "Just give me the keys, Lizzie!"

"How's Charlotte?" She rattled with the keys, but he just growled instead of answering. "How is Charlotte, Craig?"

"She's alive", he replied while trying to catch her around the waist, but she escaped him again.

"Craig..."

"She's talking to her Mom on the phone and cursing in Spanish so loudly that I can hear her in my room." He sighed. "Can I get my keys now?"

Lizzie furrowed her brow. "She's cursing, you say?"

"Fuck, yes!" He groaned and again tried to snatch the keys away but she just held them out of his reach.

Another groan. "God dammit, Lizzie! Give me my keys!"

She looked at him, a grin spreading on her face. "God?", she asked, an eyebrow raised. "I thought you didn't believe in a pathetic excuse for opium, Craig."

"The reason I'm cursing", he replied and rolled his eyes. "Fuck, Lizzie, what do you want?"

She let the bunch of keys dance around her index finger. "Chinese", she then said with a broad grin.

"Chinese?" He stopped dead in his tracks, mouth agape.

"Chinese."

"No way." He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "We're not going to drive around London to some Chinese restaurant in order to appease your appetite. Honestly, Lizzie, have you ever heard about this thing called breakfast? It's tasty, nourishing and you eat it in the morning."

"Don't you dare lecture me about healthy eating", she retorted before shaking her head dismissively and holding up the keys as some kind of warning. "We need some Chinese food to get Charlotte back under the living, if she starts cursing, that's the beginning of the end."

"Dramatic much?" He raised an eyebrow but the dignity he tried to gain with the gesture was lost at the sight of the printed hearts on his pants.

"Move, Craig, before she sets the apartment on fire."

"I'm not going anywhere", the guy in the Superman-T-Shirt declared. "And you're going to give me my keys back or else-"

"Or else what?" She balanced the thin ring of metal, that held the keys together, on the tip of her index finger, dangling it in close proximity over the grate, which marked the entrance to London's canal system.

"Empty threats are not really your thing, are they?"

"You wouldn't dare", Craig managed to get out and his eyes travelled from Lizzie's sparkling ones to the keys in her hand and then down to the grate.

"It's not my car", Lizzie replied nonchalantly and the dangling of the keys grew a bit more intense. "Chinese?"

"Chinese", Craig relented with a clearly audible swallow.

* * *

She let him drive the car. Partly because he would've screamed at every crossroad in horror, when she drove too fast around the corner (honestly, there were no worse fellow passengers than those, who applied invisible brakes and cringed whenever she revved the engine) and partly because he asked her to (even though begging would be more fitting).

Lizzie opened the window, letting in the sun and the fresh air despite Craig's protests, he was still clad only in his T-Shirt and boxers and she put her feet, tucked in heavy black boots, on the dashboard, while singing loudly along with the music (the radio was the only thing functioning accordingly in Craig's car).

"Care to explain, why exactly we need Chinese food in order to..." He tried to find words to express their mission.

"...reanimate Charlotte?", Lizzie prompted, while standing in the waiting queue at the China-restaurant, breathing in the scent of soy-sauce and grilled vegetables, that hung in the air.

"Really? Reanimate?", Craig asked and looked doubtfully down at Lizzie, who even in her boots with the thick sole barely reached the height of his elbow.

"Her mother is sucking the life out of her", Lizzie explained darkly. "That's why we need the food."

"But Charlotte's part Spanish!"

Lizzie just shrugged. "That's the reason for the Chinese food. If I offer her tapas, she'll probably collapse. Chinese was the first thing that sprung to mind, which is not going to remind her of her mother."

"You're aware of the fact that there are China-restaurants in Spain, right?", Craig asked, an eyebrow raised. He drew a lot of attention with the red hearts printed on his boxer briefs, especially in a room that consisted fifty-fifty of cheap plastic tables and waving golden cats.

"Yes, but it's the same with Ireland", she retorted. "And you wouldn't necessarily associate MrWongs with your home country, would you?"

"God, curse the day they taught you that word, Lizzie!", Craig groaned.

"13th of September, fifth grade, Ms Brixton, who tried to broaden our horizon", Lizzie replied while placing her order. She pitied the guy with the white chef's hat, especially when he totally mixed up the orders.

"The day the world as we knew it ended", Craig said ominously while taking in one of the waving cats, that sat next to the cash register.

"No, that was the day, I started talking." She paid the bill and received a deliciously smelling plastic bag with Styrofoam packages full of food. There was nothing better than in soy sauce drowned vegetables to make a day.

"That was the first sign." Craig snorted, while his flip-flops squeaked across the floor when they left the shop and Lizzie had to suppress a laughter at the sight of the flowing hearts.

They quarrelled throughout the ride home and were still engaged in "Do too! - Did not!"-banter, although the smell of grilled chicken and soy sauce did a lot to calm their nerves.

It had always been that way between them. Craig had been part of their group since the day, Lizzie and Charlotte had moved into the apartment next to his. He was living alone, because he scared off most of his flatmates in the first two weeks and after the obligatory "Turn the fucking music down!" and "Do you really have to smoke _that_ stuff on the balcony?" , he became some kind of third unofficial flatmate.

He came over for dinner most nights (they'd discovered early enough in their acquaintance that Lizzie and Charlotte were probably the better cooks, as long as Charlotte didn't set the kitchen on fire) and he helped fixing their IT-stuff (he studied informatics and was a genius when it came to collapsing laptops). He also always had some free bed space, if one of them needed refuge to escape the guys the other one had brought home for the night and he didn't even bat an eyelash if one of them was banging on his door at three in the morning, because they just couldn't find their keys in their drunken stupor.

Lizzie had never seen much of his friends, the majority of his social life played out on the internet, if they didn't force him to go out and leave his nest for at least an evening to engage in verbal communication.

Lizzie suspected that he was gay, but he never stated something clearly and she thought, it wasn't her place to ask.

"I swear if you weren't so tiny, I'd probably pass out right now!", Craig gasped, while carrying Lizzie piggy-back up the stairs and down the hallway to their separate apartments. She'd forced him to do so and after an incredulous "Who the hell do you think I am?" from his side, she'd just poked a finger against his chest and said "Superman". Obviously, this had ruffled his ego.

They hadn't even reached the front door of Lizzie's and Charlotte's apartment, when they could hear their flatmate's voice cursing loudly in Spanish.

„¡Madre mía, estás loco! ¡Silencio, por favor! ¡Silencio!", it reverberated throughout the hallway and Lizzie's grip on the plastic bag with the Chinese-food intensified.

"We're going to open that door now", she whispered in Craig's ear. "So brace yourself!"

Craig nodded in silent agreement and the fingers of his right hand turned around the key, while Lizzie held up the bag of food like some kind of weapon.

„¡Por dios!", it thundered, just when they opened the door and thoroughly shocked, Lizzie and Craig nearly fell backwards into the hallway, but Craig in the last possible minute managed to keep his balance, while reaching for the door frame.

„¡Mierda!", it escaped Charlotte, her phone still pressed against her ear, looking alarmed at the wavering couple in front of her, while her mother's voice could still be heard shrilling through the speakers. "What are you doing here?"

Lizzie grinned, while Craig still fought, gasping for air, for his balance. "Special Delivery!", she cried out excitedly and handed Charlotte the bag, but before the girl could react, Craig started to groan. "Ugh, Lizzie get off me!", he managed to get out and Lizzie obeyed by jumping off Craig's back.

"We brought some food", she explained, dangling the deliciously smelling bag in front of Charlotte's nose, while at the same time taking in her surroundings. Thank Goodness, nothing seemed to have shattered, burned or exploded in her absence.

"Please, tell me that this is exactly what I think it is!", Charlotte exclaimed, phone still in hand and followed Lizzie out of the small kitchen area into the just as small living-room, which was currently owned by an insanely amount of books and papers, only to promptly step into one of the various pots, which were scattered across the floor and with a loud bang and a clash to get some of the piles of books to collapse when she promptly slipped.

"¡Me cago en la mierda!", she hissed while trying to free her foot from the confines of the pot. Craig stumbled into the room and a bit bewildered took in the chaos and Lizzie's amused face.

"Aren't you hungry?", he asked and questioningly held up a stack of plates.

"Of course!", Charlotte spat out behind the curtain of wild dark tresses, that covered her face at the moment. "My feet is just stuck in this fucking-" And exactly at that moment she remembered that her Mom was still on the phone, when said woman began screeching through the speaker.

"Ah, just shut up, Mamá", she snapped. "¡Me cago en la mierda! Can't you just be quiet? I'm not going to go back to Spain and you can't force me!" She slammed her foot, which was still stuck in the pot, Lizzie used to cook her famous Spagetthi Carbonara, on the floor as if to illustrate her point. "I don't care what Papá has to say about that! No and you can take notes, I'm not going to marry that stupid son of Pabló Luego Gonzales – No, I don't care and you can't - ¡Mierda, listen to me for once!" She stood up, foot still caught in the pot and stated pacing around the room, dragging with her the pot, like some kind of acoustical accompaniment.

"Don't you dare calling me ungrateful" _Clang_ . "You demand that I -" _Clang_. "- give up everything I have, just because -" _Clang_. " - you want to have that damned farm!" She stamped her foot angrily and with just that exact amount of force was she able to rid herself of her involuntarily gained shoe made of slightly crusted special steel. The surprise over this achievement made Charlotte loose her balance and step onto a heap of pens, someone (Lizzie) had forgotten there.

„¡Dios mío!", she cried out in pain and hobbled away from other potential sources of harm and then "Fuck!", which didn't seem to please her mother, because the screaming reached new heights of torture.

"No, Mamá, I'm not forgetting my roots. Fuck is a thoroughly common term even in Spanish and - ¡Mierda – that's no reason for you to take me home! Don't you even dare! No, absolutely not... ¡Ni soñarlo! I'm not a little girl anymore! Don't think you could -", she started anew, while Lizzie placidly filled the three plates with rice and vegetables, Craig gave her and answered the growing nervousness in his eyes with a shrug of her shoulders.

In the meantime Charlotte screamed herself into a growing rage. "I don't care what your neighbours will think – No, I don't go to church every Sunday – And _no_, I don't think, I'll go to hell!"

Craig started sweating, he had a problem with witnessing fights, if he was not part of the argument. In attempt to calm him, Lizzie put a hand on his shoulder and walked over to the pacing Charlotte, who dragged a little whirlwind of book pages and old wrapping papers with her in her fury, and thrust the plate with the Chinese food right in front of Charlotte's nose, stopping her in her wild movements, when the scent hit her.

She sighed, blinked at Lizzie, who looked at her with a bright smile on her face and shut her phone with a resigned gesture.

"Chinese?", she asked and the wild expression on her face disappeared.

"Without mushrooms", Lizzie assured her with a grin, that carved dimples in her cheeks.

"But with pineapples", Craig chimed in, obviously relieved that the screaming and also the growing whirlwind had ceased. Some papers where still flowing around in the air, only to sink like fallen leaves to the floor next to Charlotte.

Lizzie sat down next to her friend, cross-legged in front of the couch, Craig did the same and the three of them used the successful rescue measures to prepare a slightly unconventional picnic.

"Now we only need someone to play the guitar", Lizzie mused, her fork held up in the air like a conductor's baton.

"And a bonfire", Charlotte added, head pressed against the sofa cushions, her hair standing up like a bunch of wild arrows, pointing in all directions.

"How do you want to get a bonfire in here?", Craig asked, mouth full of rice and vegetables.

Charlotte grinned a bit mischievously and eyed the small couch table made of wood, which was buried under a myriad of papers and anatomy books.

"Oh no!", Lizzie cried out and raised both hands, including fork and plate, in defence. "Don't you dare get anywhere near that table! Was the toaster last month not enough?"

"The toaster?", Craig asked surprised. "What did you to the poor thing?"

"Charlotte decided last month that she wanted to eat some toast", Lizzie started explaining, while picking up some pieces of carrot.

"Isn't that the normal thing to do?" Craig looked questioningly from one girl to the other. Lizzie snorted.

"You should think so, right?" She shook her head "No, she decided that four o'clock in the morning would be the perfect time for a little breakfast and started rummaging in the kitchen.

"Because it's something you'd never do", Charlotte interjected while chewing on her food.

"I make coffee!", Lizzie retorted and turned back towards Craig. "Anyway, she wanted some toast and until the point where you put in the slices and press start, it all went well, but then she had the sudden idea, the toaster wouldn't work."

"It didn't turn hot!", Charlotte complained indignantly. "I hold my hand over it, but it just wouldn't turn hot!"

"Of course it didn't", Lizzie replied. "You held your hand over the bread bin. Would be one hell of a surprise if that thing was hot."

"I forgot my glasses, okay?", Charlotte admitted albeit reluctantly while tugging on her horn-rimmed-glasses.

Lizzie shook her head in an amused fashion before continuing. "In any case, Charlotte decided to test if the toaster really wasn't working properly and put -"

"Do you know of another way to test it?", Charlotte interjected and Lizzie turned towards her friend, eyes widened incredulously.

"With matches?!", she asked. "Charlotte, you - "

"I couldn't see anything, okay?"

"Wait, did she really-" Craig looked slightly horrified from Lizzie to Charlotte.

"- put matches in the toaster? Yes, she did." Lizzie glanced with a shake of her head over to Charlotte, who was pouting now. "Next thing, I knew, there was a loud bang and Charlotte was screaming, because she'd burned her hand."

"It wasn't that bad", Charlotte mumbled and gazed at her right hand, which was still covered in a thin bandage.

"I nearly called an emergency!", Lizzie retorted. "You were so fucking lucky, Char, that the whole thing didn't explode and kill us all."

"A toaster?", Charlotte asked and raised an eyebrow. "Dramatic much?"

"Oh am I?", Lizzie asked, louder this time. "Am I really? You nearly set us all on fire!" She turned towards Craig. "By the way, the toaster didn't survive."

Craig grinned. "Thought so. Did you attend the funeral?"

"Yes", Lizzie nodded seriously. "We buried him at _Miller&Sons Electronic Scrap_. It was really a touching ceremony. Charlotte did the speeches and I selected the music."

"I can imagine that. _Welcome To The Black Parade_?", he asked with a grin and put another spoonful of food in his mouth.

"Among others. _The End _and _Dead!_ were played, I also wanted to play_ Famous Last Words_, but Charlotte thought it was too dramatic."

Charlotte looked from Lizzie to Craig. "You're aware that this wonderful funeral consisted of Lizzie wearing her black lace outfit, throwing the toaster on the scrapyard on her way to the library and loudly singing highly depressing songs in the tube?"

"Hey, it's called irony!"

"Or hungry for dramatic show effects", Charlotte retorted. "She wore that huge black hat with the veil and the fake flowers."

"Ever heard of the word "style", Char?", Lizzie interjected, while perusing her food for remaining pieces of pineapple.

"You looked like a black widow." Craig snorted at Charlotte's retort and hid the laugh in his food.

"Like I said: Style."

Charlotte just threw her a sceptic glance before picking up the last pieces of food, she'd left on her plate.

"What did your mother want from you?", Craig asked, too fast for Lizzie to elbow him.

Charlotte's now relaxed mien hardened again and she grabbed her knife so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "Persuade me to come back to Spain in order to marry that sexist _moron_ of a son, who'll inherit the farm next to my parents' house." She shook her head and Lizzie threw Craig a warning glare, which left the guy in the Superman-T-Shirt squirming uncomfortably on the floor.

"When I refused, she pulled that card about me being not pretty enough to find someone else to marry and that I spend too much time in Uni to ever attract a decent husband." She sighed and rolled her eyes. Lizzie wanted to protest, but Charlotte blocked her words with a motion of her hand. "I know it's true, Lizzie, no need to lie to me."

Lizzie wanted to protest again, but thought better of it. It was hard to get Charlotte to see things her way, when she'd made decision and she wanted to strangle Mrs Lucas for creating all these inferiority complexes in her daughter.

It was true, Charlotte was no beauty, at least not on first glance. Her wild, black hair was never to be tamed and even after hours of brushing it still looked like she'd just gotten out of bed and the part of her face that was not covered by a curtain of hair, she hid behind those huge glasses.

Ironically, Charlotte was anything but shy and if, in the course of an evening, she pushed her hair out of her face and lost her glasses somewhere, most people were surprised to see her big brown eyes and to hear the dry humour coming from her lips.

Not to mention the fact that Charlotte was the clumsiest person, Lizzie knew, and could manage to get into every possible accident, happening in a two mile radius.

"Sounds like your Mom, Lizzie", Craig remarked, while scratching the leftovers on his plate together.

Lizzie groaned. "And that's the exact reason why these two ladies are never, and I mean never, going to meet each other."

"The distance is certainly a factor in your favour, I suppose", Craig said. "Minimizes every possible chance of interaction."

He gazed out of the window, a far away look in his eyes and Lizzie wondered if he thought about his own family. She wanted to ask him, but let it drop. Family was a sensitive subject for all of them, probably most of all for Craig.

"Hey, what exactly was that text about, you sent me yesterday?", Charlotte asked suddenly, when she'd calmed enough to again participate in the conversation.

"What text are you talking about?", Lizzie asked astonished, because she couldn't remember texting Charlotte yesterday.

"What text?", Charlotte repeated. "Plural, sweetheart. You sent about five or six, all with the same... strange.. text."

"Goodness", Lizzie groaned, thinking about Jimmy, the dentist and his...offer. "What did it say?"

Charlotte giggled. "Always the same._ "Number Two! Fucking Type Two!"_ Oh and here's my favourite:_ "He is a fucking Two, Char, Type Two!"_" She looked at Lizzie expectantly. "Who the hell are you talking about?"

Craig grinned. "Sounds like it's a) a position, I don't know, or b) some kind of rating."

Lizzie sighed, she knew exactly, who these texts were about and it definitely wasn't about some kind of position. At the very least they weren't about dentist-Jimmy and _that_ was a consolation.

"Darcy", she finally mumbled and growled a bit.

"Darcy?", Charlotte cried out surprised. "Our professor?"

Lizzie nodded, her expression grim. "As it seems, Jane forgot to tell me that Charlie's famous best friend teaches ethics at Uni." She shook her head, still a bit overwhelmed by that bit of information and the sheer mass of accidents that had thrown Darcy and her together.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Charlotte nearly jumped in the air in excitement. "And did you-"

"Goodness, _No_, Charlotte!" Thoroughly shocked, Lizzie nearly dropped her plate. "He's our professor!"

Charlotte shrugged. "Who cares? He's hot and you've been together at that party."

"If that's the only criterion you need, to jump into bed with someone...", Craig murmured and was soon the recipient of one Charlotte's poisonous glares.

"We weren't _together_ at that party!", Lizzie practically screamed and only calmed down, when she saw how Craig jerked back at the sound. "Not to mention the fact that he doesn't think me pretty enough to even _tempt_ him to _dance_" She grinned a bit derisively at the thought of Darcy's words.

"He didn't say that?!" Charlotte seemed practically horrified. Craig just chuckled.

"Seems like we all got out inferiority complexes together these days", he remarked but didn't react to the astonished glances of the two girls.

"Anyway, we reached some kind of arrangement", Lizzie explained, while drawing circles in the rice on her plate. "Outside of Uni I may call him Darcy and he won't judge my behaviour in my free-time." She shrugged and proceeded to randomly poke some vegetables.

"And what does he call you?", Charlotte asked smugly.

"Miss Bennet", Lizzie replied. "It was the only alternative, because we are neither sleeping with each other nor are we friends."

"Oh Oh", Charlotte practically sang. "Then we'll know if something about that changes." Lizzie threw her a glare before focusing again on her artwork, the sauce definitely contrasted the white of the rice most becomingly.

"It still does not explain the strange texts", Craig remarked and looked at her expectantly.

Lizzie sighed. "Do you remember when I spoke about two potential types, Charlie's mysterious friend could embody?", she asked Charlotte, who nodded. "He's number Two."

"So rich business-guy with blonde Bimbo and Vodka to open up his mouth?" Lizzie nodded impressed by Charlotte's ability to remember everything. "Except for the Vodka-thing... Darcy doesn't drink."

"He doesn't drink?", both, Craig and Charlotte asked incredulously. She nodded in affirmation. "Not a single drop. Don't ask me why. He just rambled on about potential physical side effects and that _I_, as a med student, should be aware of them." She shook her head. "Arrogant ass, if you ask me."

"Yeah, you mentioned that", Charlotte retorted and laughed before taking a look at the clock on her phone display (there were a lot of missed call signs, but she ignored them all).

"Oh Shit!", she cried out. "¡Mierda, we have to go!" She jumped up and ripped Lizzie's plate, which was still half full, out of her hands. "Anne is going to kill us if we're too late."

Lizzie started protesting, but when she became aware of the time, she relented to Charlotte's wild searching-for-clothes-dance, which ended in a lot of upended drawers.

"What are you going to do at Anne's?", Craig asked, overwhelmed by the sudden chaos.

"She's doing a test execution for her EEG-study about face-recognition and Charlotte and I are helping her so that she can practice.

"Awesome", Craig smiled. "I want to see photos."

Lizzie grinned mischievously. "What do you think Charlotte's searching for?" She pointed at the bag on the kitchen counter. "She just doesn't know I already have the camera."

"You're mean, Lizzie", Craig laughed and started cleaning up after their meal.

"Hmm", she said, while waiting with crossed arms for him to turn back around. "Craig?"

"Yeah?" He looked at her, she smiled sweetly, dimples around her mouth.

"Would you do me a favour?" He looked at her suspiciously. "Only a teeny-tiny one!"

He sighed. "What do you want?"

She beamed. "Can we borrow your car?"

* * *

**A/N: Good Gracious, forgive my bad spanish, I decided to only stick to some expressions, but it was probably very poorly done, I'm sorry and again sorry any other language mistakes, I'm still trying to do my best without betaing;) **

**My Chemical Romance is actually my favourite band, the album The Black Parade is a really great piece of music, albeit very different from Regina Spektor;) **

**So I hope you like Craig and Charlotte, next time we'll do a little trip down memory lane;)**

**As always, reviews are appreciated, very much so!**


	6. Chapter 5 The lost ones

**A/N: So here we go again;) some of you commented on the lack of D&E in the last chapter, I'm sorry but it'll take this one and the next before we get back to those two, but I promise two chapters FULL with them (anyone remebering the Netherfiel ball?) **

**BUT this one is my favourite chapter so far, even though it's without Darcy, it's different...and did I promise it would get darker? it does now. **

**some of you also commented on the many errors I make, there are some issues with betaing at the moment, which mean either delaying updates for an unknown period of time or updating uncorrected versions, I chose the latter, but if one of you is willing to correct my chapters in a more timely manner, I'd appreciate it greatly. I'm always trying to get better, but I fear I make a lot of mistakes, especially in this chapter because of the tenses, I did my best and even worked through my brother's grammar book, because I really, really love this chapter:)**

**to wendywho: I didn't know that song before! but it's funny even though I'm not sure if it's really accurate, Lizzie's not really a teacher's pet (funny expression you english/american people have there;) she's more a pain in the ass than anything else, albeit an intelligent one, keeping Darcy on his toes, but thank you anyway, I love music suggestions (give them to me!)**

**Soundtrack: Bon Iver - RE:Stacks (lyrics in italics)**

**Bon Jovi - Runaway **

**Band of Horses - The Funeral **

**Disclaimer: This one is so AU, I probably don't even need to tell you, I'm not Jane Austen (which is plainly obvious because I curse, a lot) **

* * *

**Chapter 5: The lost ones**

She met Anne on her first day in London five years ago.

It was unplanned. She remembered having packed her suitcase in the lasting drunken stupor from prom, throwing money, a passport and two chocolate bars into her bag before taking the next train to London that same night. Everything that happened after that was sequence of smells and sounds and the droning in her head, which did not lessen until she stood on platform 3 at King's Cross in Jane's High Heels and a red silk-dress, which was more a statement than anything else, staring at the enormous Welcome-to-London-sign, which greeted the travellers.

She'd forgotten to leave a message and the knowledge left a bitter, metallic taste on her tongue, her mobile phone had gotten lost somewhere on the way between school and Longbourn, when she'd stumbled home in those murderous shoes, so that was also not an option.

Lizzie had no idea how long she stood there, silent, focused on this one sign, which greeted her in such cheerful colours and wondering whether or not the artist had been on LSD when creating that piece.

She still thought so every time she was at King's Cross.

She walked away from the platform and to the central area of the train station, where all the shops blinked and sparkled and the destination boards lit up with the names of places so far away. Lizzie kept walking, blocking out the pain in her feet, wondering whether or not she wanted some coffee and whether or not her stomach was still there to appreciate it.

She must have been walking the circle from the destination boards to the coffee shop and back to platform 3 for nearly an eternity, but it took her a while before she became aware of the girl with the short brown hair, who seemed to observe her.

At first she just shrugged it off, thinking that her rather unusual outfit was the cause for the girl's obvious interest and continued her mindless wandering through the endless throng of travellers.

But the next time Lizzie stopped at the destination boards, the girl was still sitting there on the bench next to an agitatedly talking woman in a grey business-outfit, a small book in her hand, scribbling something or other down, while continuing to observe Lizzie closely.

Lizzie was used to those glances, was used to people staring at her, whispering behind her back, murmuring stories about mothers and fathers and the distant cousin of this or that aunt's brother. She knew the look from top to bottom and how they wrinkled their noses in distaste when taking in the spikes on her shoes and she just laughed, laughed because it was so much easier than to take them all seriously.

But something in the way this girl looked at her over the rim of her glasses was different and that unsettled Lizzie.

She moved to the side, hid herself in between a group of business-men and overfilled garbage cans, blinking to see if the girl was still watching her.

She was.

The girl's glance travelled between the book in her lap and Lizzie, while her pen scurried over the pages. Lizzie furrowed her brow, disappeared behind a wall only to reappear at the other side and to again catch the girl's watchful eyes. She seemed to expect her.

But what caught her completely off guard was the sudden smile, playing on the corners of her mouth.

She laughed and that disturbed Lizzie greatly.

It was not the open, not the boisterous, way too familial laugh, she knew so well, it was the little twitch around her lips, the flashing up, she could easily detect even across the distance, conveying the impression that the girl could see right into her soul.

And it infuriated her.

"What are you doing?", she demanded to know, now towering (the additional ten centimetres gave her some kind of height advantage) over the girl, who didn't seem to be in the least intimidated.

"Curious?", she asked and her light brown eyes pierced right into Lizzies green ones.

"No", Lizzie retorted, hands on her hips, while pushing some wayward strands of hair out of her face, that escaped Jane's carefully constructed hairstyle from the previous evening. "I just want you to remove whatever you wrote on that page."

"Which page?", the girl asked and smiled, the same subtle smile as before, while placidly closing the book.

"The one about me." Lizzie stared at her, trying to hide her tiredness and all the other emotional stuff behind her apparent bad temper.

"So she's not only curious but also a narcissist!", the brown-eyed girl remarked and her lips contorted into an amused smile. "What makes you think this page is about you? I could just as easily have been drawing those guys, you hid behind."

Lizzie arched an eyebrow. "Just the fact that you know I was hiding. So come on, give me the page."

"Ah! She's an intelligent one, how interesting!" Still smiling she opened the book again to write something down.

"What the hell are you doing?", Lizzie demanded to know, more irritated this time. The girl looked up for a moment.

"_And_ she's getting impatient."

"Oh please, stop the psychoanalysis and give me that picture, I have neither the time nor the inclination to hang around here the whole day", Lizzie hissed and reached out to grasp the paper.

The girl's gaze wandered from the outstretched hand with the chipped off nail varnish and over the red silk-dress towards Lizzies blazing eyes.

"Psychoanalysis, urgh", she grimaced. "I'm not a big fan of Freud, the guy's way too overrated in my opinion, not to mention his giant ego and mummy-issues." A shake of the head and some more strokes with the pen followed this explanation.

"Give me-"

"Red isn't your typical colour, is it?" The brown eyes scurried over the prom-dress and then back to her book. "You also don't seem to be the type to wear pearls for that matter."

"And that's no psychoanalysis?", Lizzie asked unnerved while wondering at the same time why the hell she even reacted to the girl's questions.

"No, because then I probably would've attributed your unusual choice of dress and jewels to attempts to please your daddy." She lifted one eyebrow. "Unresolved Oedipus complex, you know?"

Both girls just looked at each other and with a ripping sound, that sent shivers down Lizzies spine, she tore the page out of the book and handed it to Lizzie.

"Here", she said and Lizzie reached for the paper, but the girl with the glasses didn't let go.

"Do you know where you're going to sleep tonight?", she asked, her gaze penetrating.

Lizzie tensed. "Yes", she said tersely and ripped the paper out of her hand.

"You're sure about that?", the girl called after her, when Lizzie abruptly turned around and walked down the platform, dragging her heavy suitcase behind her, which rumbled and jangled and bumped painfully against her calves.

She tried to ignore her, to pretend she wasn't there, the girl with the brown eyes, who walked next to her as if they were the best of friends.

"You're alone", the girl observed. Lizzie didn't say anything.

"That's okay, really it is", she continued. "London is great when you're travelling alone." She swiftly circled a garbage can in her way, which Lizzie had hoped would stop her. "But not if you don't know where to sleep at night. The streets get dangerous in the dark, especially for girls in red silk-dresses and way too high shoes."

"What do my shoes have to do with this?", Lizzie asked against her will, while trying to find a destination, she could at least _possibly_ have.

"You won't be able to run in them", the girl replied. "You can't even walk in them, let alone do a little race, not to mention your suitcase."

"I know where I want to go", Lizzie answered through gritted teeth, pulling rather violently at her suitcase to get it around some hoardings, that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

"I don't doubt that you have a destination", the girl said and stopped walking. "I just think you forgot the middle part." She cocked her head and Lizzie realized that she too, had stopped walking. Well, _Fuck_.

"You know, the part between a decision and the actual achievement of said objectives", the girl explained.

Lizzie just looked at her. "You're standing at the train station and you want to get away so badly, but you haven't even bought the damn ticket, while you're wondering if you want to run till Edinburgh or if London provides enough distance." She was now gesticulating wildly with her hands, pointing at the Welcome-to-London-sign over their heads. "And then you realize that we're on an island and that in the next six hours you won't be able to get further than Averdeen, unless you catch a flight but then you would have to decide. Europe? Asia? America? Africa, perhaps?" Her eyes grew bigger with each continent and her hands cut through the air. "And if you've chosen a continent, there's still the question, where exactly you want to go, which city, which county... Big city or a village? The coast or mountains? How long do you think it'll take? Getting there and then figuring out, what exactly you want to do there? An hour? Two? Three weeks, perhaps? Do you know what you want to do in the meantime? How to earn money and find a place to sleep?"

In the course of this little speech the muscles in Lizzies face started to quiver and it took all her willpower to hold up her mask, to protect, to _stay strong_.

"What do you care?", she hissed and her grip around her suitcase intensified.

"I know everything about running away", the girl said with a faint smile and hid her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. "And you're just starting."

"I'm here", Lizzie said, her eyes suddenly defensive and pleading at the same time. "Isn't that enough?"

"Of course." The brown eyes lit up. "If you want to be home again in three days."

"No." The word reverberated clearly and coldly between them and they just looked at each other for a while. "I don't want to go back."

"Okay", the girl said, her brown eyes soft. An announcement resounded. The train from Plymouth pulled into the station and over the hissing and wheezing of the train and the sounds of the descending passengers nobody uttered a word.

Lizzies grip on her suitcase loosened a bit, strands of hair, that had escaped the confines of her bun, tickled and teased her face and bare shoulders. The other girl sighed and took a step towards Lizzie.

"Do you know where you're going to sleep tonight?", she asked again, her head slightly cocked. Lizzie opened her mouth, one, two times, searching for an answer before she looked at the girl in front of her. "No", she then said and the muscles in her neck and shoulders tensed at the word, not wanting to admit defeat.

"Then come with me", the strange girl said with a sigh and put her book back into her bag. "We're going to find you a middle part."

* * *

The girl, who introduced herself as Anne, took her with her into her apartment, a small two-bedroom-thing with colourful scarves and black-and-white photographies on the walls and huge oriental cushions on the floor.

It happened in the bathroom, when Lizzie carefully pulled the pins and pearls out of her bun, wincing when she ripped out too much hair. She sighed in relief, when the long strands of dark brown hair finally fell freely over her shoulders and suddenly she remembered that she was still holding the piece of paper in her hand, which Anne had given her at the train station.

It was thicker than the papers she knew from art lessons at school and of a yellowish tinge, like a parchment or an old newspaper page. It scratched against her skin, when she opened it.

Anne hadn't lied, when she said, she had been drawing.

Lizzie stared at her own face in black and white, at the strands of hair hiding her eyes, the tension in her shoulders, clearly visible even through the thick jacket, the defiance and rigidity with which she held her head and she had the feeling, she couldn't breathe anymore.

Her gaze fell on the pearls next to the basin and she thought about the effort, Jane had undertaken the previous evening to get them all in her hair. _You're so pretty, _she'd said, beaming with pride. _My beautiful baby sister, so grown up!_

"Tea is ready", Anne's soft voice sounded at the other side of the door and she knocked against the frame. Lizzie nodded, even though Anne couldn't possibly see that and zipped up her sweatshirt.

"I'm coming."

The curtain made of red and turquoise pearls clinked, when she entered the living-room. Anne already sat on one of the cushions, a cup without handle but in a lime-green frosh-design clutched tightly in her hands.

Lizzie held up the paper. "Why?", she asked and sat down, cross-legged on one of the cushions.

Anne just shrugged. "You seemed lost."

"Do you always draw people, who seem lost?", Lizzie asked, an eyebrow arched.

"Preferably", Anne retorted and smiled. "Train stations seem to attract them magically."

Lizzie nodded, pushing her cold bare feet under her thighs, sipping on her tea. Chamomile, she realized, Jane always made tea like that. "And what are you doing at said train stations?"  
Anne shrugged again. "Finding them", she answered cryptically and took another sip of her tea.

"The lost ones?" Lizzie furrowed her brow, not daring to ask if she was talking nonsense or if it was the tea. "To me it seems as if they don't want to be found."

She looked at the wall to avoid the girl's gaze, letting her eyes wander over the multitude of pictures, close-ups of faces in shop or car windows, a hand bathed in sunlight, words written in the dusty window of a diner.

"But of course they do", Anne said and her eyes lit up. "That's the whole purpose of getting lost."

Lizzie avoided her eyes, the smile on her lips, the urge to defend herself in any way possible.

"I'm not lost", she then said, but it wasn't much better.

Anne looked pensively at her for a while. "But you'd like to be, right?"

Lizzies gaze rushed back to her, her body suddenly on alert. "Why the hell should I _want_ to get lost?"

Anne shrugged and pushed back some errant strands of her short, brown hair. She wore piercings in her ear, Lizzie noticed, black and pink dots in turns. "I don't know", she then said. "Why don't you tell me?"

Lizzies gaze scurried away, away from the irritating light brown colour, which seemed to shimmer golden and her dripping wet hair, falling in front of her face like some kind of curtain, hid her effectively from the prying eyes of the outside world.

She could hear Anne's sigh. "Do you know where you want to go?", she asked.

"No", Lizzie said. "I just wanted to get away."

"Running is not enough if you don't know where to run to", Anne replied with a nod.

Lizzie snorted. "Do you always talk like a fortune cookie?"

The girl grinned without her eyes loosing one damn bit of their intensity. "Preferably", she said.

"Honestly, do you know them all by heart?", Lizzie dug in deeper while staring at her tea. Her breath drew circles in the surface of the liquid and the waves reached dangerous heights.

"Sure, because I've got nothing better to do", Anne retorted and something clinked against the porcelain cup.

"Could've been an interesting collage", Lizzie remarked with a shrug and blew softly against the waves, brought them right to the verge of spilling over.

"Probably not." Anne was silent for a while, looking at Lizzie, who refused to meet her gaze. "Even though it would be interesting to collect all the different types of reactions when people open their fortune cookies and put those into a collage. Something like "_Fifty shades of curiosity_"."

"You have a weakness for people, don't you?", Lizzie asked, blinking behind the curtain of hair only to again hide behind it.

"And you one for words?" The question hung in the air and Lizzie just snorted.

Anne sighed. "Don't think of me as some kind of philanthropist", she said. "My interest in people is purely egoistical."

Lizzie cocked her head and smiled slightly. "Is that the part where you're going to kill me?"

"Nah, just the part, where I tell you that I study psychology." She grinned. "The part about killing you won't come up until I tell you what I've put into that tea."

Lizzie raised both eyebrows. "How nice of you to tell me that _now_"

"You're welcome", Anne replied and smiled softly.

Lizzie dropped her gaze and squirmed a bit uncomfortably on the blue silk cushion, pulling the sleeves of her sweatshirt a bit further down and over her wrists. Hiding, it was all about hiding. _Out of sight, out of mind. _

Anne caught the motion and Lizzie felt her penetrating gaze.

"When did it happen?", the girl with the amber eyes asked sharply and leaned in.

Lizzie pressed her teeth so tightly together that it nearly hurt. "Three weeks ago", she replied, still refusing to meet Anne's eyes.

"They're still there?" Lizzie nodded while Anne's eyes travelled from Lizzies face to her wrists. Lizzie said nothing.

"But your dress...", Anne began and her gaze scurried over to the heap of red silk on the floor, shimmering in the light of Anne's apartment. "...it's sleeveless."

Lizzie snorted and the tea blistered. "That's the whole point."

Anne looked at her, an eyebrow raised, her bangs cut her forehead in a zig-zag line.

"A statement", she realized and Lizzie nodded, albeit hesitantly.

"Not even a shawl?, the ambergirl asked and smiled a bit askew. Lizzie just looked at her and shook her head.

"No."

Anne nodded. "But now you're hiding them again."

Lizzies shoulders slouched a bit. "Yes", she said and tried to sound calm and strong.

Anne sighed. "Running won't help you, Lizzie." Her voice was the perfect embodiment of monotonous self-assuredness and Lizzie would not until later understand it as her way to handle conflicts. She'd straightened her back, still sitting cross-legged on one of the cushions with her cup of tea in her hands, like an elfish sort of Buddha with piercings and golden glowing eyes.

Lizzie shrugged. "I can try, right?" She sounded more confident than she actually felt.

Anne leaned in slightly. "Of course", she said softly. "But for now, you can stay."

* * *

And she stayed. Three days. Until she, like a blind man seeing the sunlight for the first time, stumbled out and onto a London street and saw her reflection in one of the shop windows

Anne found her in front of the mirror, when she came home later after her statistic lecture, wearing an old T-Shirt with the slogan "Fairy-tales Are Hallucinations of the Dead", a pile of scissors in the washbasin in front of her, while tentatively lifting various strands of her long dark brown hair.

"Can you cut it?", she asked, when she noticed Anne's presence at the door frame.

The ambergirl raised an eyebrow. "How short?", she asked and let her way too heavy bag fall down onto the floor.

Lizzie looked at her reflection in the mirror, the yellow light of the ceiling lamp dampened the green of her eyes and painted the white of the wall in a greyish sort of yellow. She gazed at her hair and thought that she hadn't cut it since she was twelve.

"Cut everything", she said and something like adrenaline resurrected her long lost stomach and she saw how the green in her eyes seemed to light up.

Anne snorted while taking some steps towards Lizzie and picked up one of the scissors, Lizzie had selected, one, which was normally used to cut cardboard and other stuff. "But not with these!", she cried out and inspected them with such evident distaste in her eyes that Lizzie started laughing.

"Do you think they won't cut properly?", she asked with big eyes and looked at the blades, which were longer than Anne's hand.

The ambergirl snorted. "Sweetie, what do you think your hair is made of? Steel perhaps? Or just magical tendrils?" She bent down and began rummaging in the cupboard under the washbasin.

"Jane always called it Medusa hair", Lizzie replied before she realized that she'd perhaps revealed too much.

Anne's only reaction to this statement consisted of hitting her head with a loud bang against the washbasin, when she tried to rise again.

"I hope not!", she managed to get out, while muttering curses under her breath. "I'm deathly afraid of snakes."

Lizzie giggled. "Then perhaps the big scissor could prove to be useful after all", she suggested, while observing Anne, who put the little black case, she'd retrieved from the cupboard, next to the washbasin and now reached for an oversized towel with an irritating flower pattern, which she draped around Lizzies shoulders and forced her to sit on the stool in front of the mirror.

"I don't kill anyone, not even snakes", she declared matter-of-factly, while arranging Lizzie's hair on the towel. "Not to forget that I normally cut wires with that one."

"Wires?" Lizzie looked questioningly at her in the mirror.

"Wires", Anne confirmed and opened the little black case, revealing a set of professional looking scissors and combs. "I chained my Moringas to their stakes", she explained with a laugh.

"Aha. Your Moringas." Lizzies already bemused expression grew even more confused, when she crinkled her nose. "Is that a code for pot, I'm not aware of?"

Anne started laughing so hard that she nearly choked on the pins, she held with her teeth and which she used to pin up the top layer of Lizzies hair. "No", she managed to say and some pins fell clattering down onto the floor. "No, it's no marijuana."

"Then why do you've got these plants on your balcony?", Lizzie asked, amused by the ambergirl, who fought her laughing fit like a little child.

"So that I can sue my neighbours for damage compensation, when the idiots next door steal them", she explained, while applying water to the strands of hair. "The leaves are good for you health, if you eat them daily", she explained, before both of them became silent again.

Anne looked at her in the mirror, scissor in hand. "Are you sure that is what you want?"

Lizzie nodded. "Like a dead man."

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to see the strands fall down, to see how the long dark tendrils fell from her neck and left it bare and exposed.

She remembered how Jane always fussed with her hair at girls-nights, braided and pinned it up into some complicated hairstyles. She'd let her do it, even though she couldn't stand the constant prodding and poking. She remembered how her mother told her that her hair was the only beautiful thing about her and how her Dad explained that she had inherited her hair colour from his mother, her Granny Rosie.

She thought about how many memories you could connect to some dead cells, while she watched the keratin fall.

Finally it was over. She saw Anne running her hands through her hair for the last time and then she was there, Lizzie Bennet, with hair not even reaching her chin.

She liked it, surprisingly. Cutting her hair hadn't been about improving her looks, looking _different_ had been her only goal, but she liked the side effect, the way the short strands accentuated her cheekbones, making her look older and more mature.

"You've done that before, haven't you?", she asked Anne and a shadow clouded the gold of the ambergirl's eyes.

"Yes", she said and and forced herself to smile. "I cut my hair myself."

Lizzie gazed at her with eyes seemingly bigger, the green larger, with the new hairstyle, but she didn't ask the question, that burned a hole in her tongue.

"Can you dye them, too?", she asked instead and pulled a bottle of _Directions_ out of her bag, which lay next to her feet.

Anne eyes became huge, when she saw the bottle of hair dye and she swallowed rather obviously before answering. "Honestly?", she asked. "You want to dye them in _that_ colour?"

Lizzie nodded. "I want to run, do you remember?"

Anne squinted her eyes. "You're not running anymore, my dear", she said, taking the bottle from Lizzies hands. "You're flying already."

It wasn't just the dying, it was the bleaching, the washing and the repeated application of hair dye, a routine Anne seemed to have brought to perfection and her fingers worked diligently through Lizzies hair.

She attempted to ask her about her apparent knowledge but Anne just shrugged it off and worked on another strand.

She made tea during a period of exposure, taking off her disposable gloves with such grace, that made her experience plainly obvious and sat down on one of the pillows.

She started talking. Awkwardly at first, she managed to get out a lot of insignificant, seemingly unconnected, deeply important remarks, followed by a raised eyebrow from Anne and then the need to elaborate again and again and then finally the stream of words, tumbling from her lips in a rush, which was only stopped by hidden obstacles, lurking beneath the surface, like stones in the riverbed.

Anne listened without judging, without even trying to stop her. The gold of her eyes grew warmer, a constantly blazing flame and when Lizzie was finished, when the stream dried out and she was left hollow and empty, the ambergirl didn't say anything for a while and then four words, that turned Lizzies world upside down.

_What do you want?_

She had no idea what she wanted and never had, it was a part of her, the part, which defined and characterized her. May I present? Lizzie Bennet, _undecided_.

It made her father laugh, it made Jane shake her head in constant worry and it threw her mother into various fits of nerves – Lizzie Bennet, cherry pit spitting world champion, winner of every science contest since she was twelve, the unchallenged _queen_ when it came to riding a bike while standing on the saddle, had no idea what she wanted in life.

But when Anne uttered these four words as if it was some kind of spell and Lizzie just the jinxed raven of an evil witch in some stupid, _stupid_ fairy-tale, an answer tickled her tongue and she voiced it without thinking.

"Medicine", the freed raven said while spreading its wings and Lizzie covered her mouth with both hands in shock. Did she really just say that?"

The flame in Anne's eyes flared up, but before she could say something the alarm clock shrilled, the period of exposure was completed, the dye had done its work.

While Lizzie sat down again on the chair in the bathroom, Anne fetched her old radio from the depths of her bedroom, placed it in the shower and began seeking for some Alternative-Indie-whatever-channel.

She heard the chords, soft and cautious and Anne began to hum along the lines of Bon Ivers _RE:Stacks_, while washing the dye out of Lizzies hair.

"_There's a black crow, sitting across from me, his wiry legs are crossed..._" Anne smiled, catching Lizzie's eyes in the mirror. "_He is dangling my keys, he even fakes a toss... Whatever could it be, that has brought me to this loss?_"

"So which one of us has a weakness for words now?", Lizzie murmured, wiping away small drops of water, that made her way down her cheeks, but Anne did not even dignify that comment with an answer and just continued humming quietly and Lizzie had to admit, she actually liked the song.

" _On your back with your racks, as the stacks are your load", _Anne sang while drying Lizzies hair with another towel, its floral design as hideous as the one before.

And then, "_it's the sound of the unlocking and lift away..". _Anne attempted to lift the towel but Lizzie wouldn't let her, ripping it away herself and revealing a broad grin, sparkling green eyes and a tousled heap of short pink hair.

* * *

Three weeks later they sat again in Anne's living-room, tea cups in their hands. Lizzies hair was still pink.

"A friend of mine is in dire need of an assistant for his trip to Kenya", Anne suddenly remarked and looked over to where Lizzie sat, cross-legged on the floor, one hand tracing her bare neck, unconsciously missing the lost weight of her hair.

"An assistant?", Lizzie asked surprised. Since she'd admitted her wish to study medicine, she'd begun to voluntarily attend some lectures while Anne was at Uni, struggling with statistics, but something still kept her from applying for a place at university for the coming semester.

"You already completed some medical trainings at hospitals, right?"

Lizzie nodded, out of pure boredom she'd been doing practical trainings during summer holidays at the hospital where her uncle worked as a surgeon, even though she hadn't seen them as a career objective at the time.

"He wants to fly over to Africa next month and the assistant, who planned to accompany him is now pregnant and therefore unable to go. Mus travels with some aid organization, medical treatment in frontier areas, vaccinations, that stuff, you know. He's desperate, because he can't find anyone, who is willing and qualified to come with him on such short-notice."

"To Kenya?", Lizzie asked incredulously and gazed at Anne. "Are you kidding me?"

"I can certainly understand if you refuse to go." The ambergirl looked at her with big golden eyes. "It's a pretty hard decision and it won't be easy. You'd have to undergo a lot of treatment and necessary vaccinations, not to mention the load of medications you'd have to take – I mean, you're eighteen, right?"

"For two days now", Lizzie admitted. "You're a bit late."

"For two days?!", Anne repeated in mild horror. "Why didn't you tell me!?"

Lizzie shrugged. "I didn't want to celebrate", she said, avoiding Anne's eyes. "But you said, I could go? To Africa?" Her green eyes lit up at the prospect of going to _Africa_ and learning about medicine at the same time.

Anne nodded, a grave expression on her face. "Mus is okay with it. He wants to get to know you beforehand and you'll have to go through a lot of training, but essentially there's no hindrance to speak of. You-"

"Yes", Lizzie interrupted her. "I'll do it."

"Really?" Anne's grew, if possible, even bigger. "You're sure about that?"

Lizzie nodded. "Like a dead man."

* * *

And she did it. She went to Kenya a month later, together with Mus, a short man with a huge moustache and eyes, that lit up when he talked about Africa.

Describing Africa as a borderline experience would be an understatement in its truest form. It was so hot that the blazing heat became a personality, a constant companion, bone-crushing and paralysing, enveloping people and bodies like a suffocating blanket.

Lizzie had never felt more alive.

She tied a multitude of colourful scarves around her head and began wearing thin blouses and T-Shirts to protect her skin from the glistening sun, when she carried around Mus' equipment. She learned a fair bit of Swahili and chattered happily with the kids and teenagers, who came to the practice to get their daily dose of medicine. For them, she was some kind of attraction, an oddity with her pink hair and sparkling green eyes.

The experience was extreme, pushing Lizzie to the absolute limit of her mental and physical capabilities and exerting herself so thoroughly over the day that she practically had to drag herself to bed and under the mosquito net at night, her exhaustion keeping the nightmares at bay.

She tried not to think about what Anne said the day of her departure, the words she always seemed to repeat in the few sentences on the back of the postcards they exchanged, even though she never wrote them out.

_Talk to your sister, tell her you're well... don't punish Jane for what happened.._

It wasn't about punishing. She furrowed her brow every time, she tried to figure out why Anne was the only person, she kept in contact with.

It wasn't about punishing.

She promised Anne, she would try, even though she wasn't sure about it and tried to deflect the question every time it came up.

"I'm flying!", she'd cried out the day of her departure bouncing excitedly down the airport towards their gate, which Mus found so amusing that he took her picture with his ancient digital camera. "Did you hear me, Annie? I'm going to fly!"

Anne just smiled, her amber eyes focused on the bouncing girl with the pink hair, the worry visible in the furrow of her brow.

"Yes", she'd said, cocking her head slightly while gazing out of the window to the planes on the airfield. "Just take care so that you won't stumble."

Lizzie stopped bouncing and stuck out her tongue while calling her a killjoy. "I won't fall", she assured her friend. "Never again."

_Don't punish your sister for what happened, Lizzie..._

The days blended into each other, the pink started to fade, her hair grew longer and only some blonde tips remained.

She kept the promise, she gave Anne at Heathrow and called Jane – a whole year later, just shortly before she came back to London, her hair short and brown and barely reaching her chin, she came back to the city, where the girl with the amber eyes waited for her.

_...and your love will be, safe with me..._

And Jane cried, when she told her, she was in Africa.

* * *

**A/N: So I hope you like it and that it's readable...  
**

**However, as an explanation: Moringas are plants, my mom had them last year, their leaves are said to be very healthy, but having them (and I mean round about 15 plants or so) in our living room really looked like she was growing marijuana there;) **

**Directions, for those of you, who don't know, is a well known brand of hair dye, specialising in colours like pink, blue or green;) **

**As always: Reviews appreciated! **


	7. Chapter 6 Septimus Sevenson

**A/N: Okay next chapter;) thank you for all the kind reviews, special thanks julianabr for her analysis and theRabbit for the constant support:) I know you're all super curious about what happened to Lizzie but it will be quite some time (not until Christmas in this story) before the truth comes out, but if you pay close attention, you'll catch the hints throughout the chapters:) I'm here for all your questions, so to all you confused readers: The last chapters happened FIVE YEARS before this story when Lizzie is eighteen, it's not a flashback but more retelling of the events when Lizzie first came to London (remeber the "stranded" in chapter 4?) **

**Okay, one more to go without Darcy, but I promise the next two ones are full of him (and her;) But oh, you're going to meet a certain someone...**

**Soundtrack: Music Box - Regina Spektor**

**Disclaimer: Still not mine, I travel in trains for Fudge's sake, not carriages!**

* * *

**Chapter 6 Septimus Sevenson  
**

"Ah, look out!", Lizzie Bennet cried out five years later, after all the sunburns were healed, her hair reached her ribcage again and Jane didn't suffer a nervous breakdown every time she called, while sliding down the long corridor on the top floor of the social sciences building, which lead towards the laboratories, closely followed by Charlotte, while wearing a pair of oversized, blue-green, self-made socks.

"Get away there!", she shouted at a group of students, who were caught in an intense discussion, while studying their respective notes. The group flew apart when Lizzie's shrill cry of warning reached them, only to nearly loose all their papers when a whirlwind of brown locks and blue fabric ripped through them, followed by an agitatedly talking girl with a flushed face, who murmured a heap of apologies.

"Sorry!", Lizzie also exclaimed, turning around halfway before making another attempt to slide down the rest of the hallway and to flee from Charlotte, who carried both their jackets and bags (including the camera) while muttering curses under her breath.

Lizzie had no sympathy for Charlotte's tirade. Sure, she was the one carrying their stuff and sure, she too wouldn't find it amusing to play servant or be abused as some kind of drudge, but as a matter of fact, Lizzie never forced Charlotte to do so. She could've just let it drop, when Lizzie pressed the garments in her hands to do sock slides down the hallway – luggage had a way of always getting back to you, like a twisted sort of Karma.

But no, Charlotte had decided to be in a particularly bad mood today (something Lizzie could understand, conversations with her Mum had the same effect on her if she did not moderate them) and who was she to tell Charlotte, what to do?

Okay, the sock-sliding had been a try.

But evidently one gone wrong, because Charlotte vehemently refused to even take of her shoes (an insistence on propriety, Charlotte attributed to her strict catholic upbringing – please, in which paragraph does the bible forbid you to bare your feet?). The attempt to cover the upper part of your body, Lizzie could have understood, heck she even would have feigned understanding if Charlotte had problems with bare legs or knees, but besides the fact that Charlotte was the first one every summer to stalk around in the skimpiest bikini known to mankind, feet covered in socks were no taboo, right?

Speaking of feet, hers were at the moment occupied with performing the longest sock-slide in the history of sock-slides and despite Charlotte's protests, Lizzie was fairly sure that she would make it around that corner if not -

Completely occupied with holding her body as streamlined as possible in order to make it around that corner, which connected the developmental psychology laboratories with those of the neuropsychology department, Lizzie was not aware of the fact that there seemed to be someone else in her way until she bumped headfirst into what seemed to be brick wall.

"Urgh!", it sounded, a mix of the sound of collision and the groan, that escaped both lips and Lizzie would've landed most inelegantly on her posterior if the brick wall had not suddenly discovered a pair of arms and held her upright.

Both of them swayed a bit, out of an instinct Lizzie had woven her hands around the guy's arms and she laughed when she regained her balance.

He returned the smile, supplementing it with a slightly askew smirk, which revealed perfect, pearly white teeth and she had to admit that he was handsome with a head of tousled, short hair of a reddish-brown shade, which an avid Twilight-reader probably would have described as bronze-coloured.

"Hey", he said, without letting her go and his blue eyes lit up.

"Hey back", she replied, letting go of him, but his hands remained where they were. She raised an eyebrow. "I think you can release me now."

He laughed again and she noticed that he was really, really handsome, a bit like Robert Pattinson but healthier and his hair was a bit more reddish. "Sure?", he asked. "I don't want to risk any further injuries. You might faint, you know?"

"No, believe me, that's not going to happen", she replied and lifted one sock-clad foot. "See? I'm stable."

He let go of her. "Then I'll have to trust you, I think." Again the smirk and the perfect row of 32 flawless teeth and she caught herself looking for fangs for a moment.

"I told you to believe me", she replied. "Trust is a completely different thing." _Slash one I'm not harbouring any time soon, _she thought and tugged at one of her socks.

"And here I thought, faith was the thing you practise at the church two blocks away from here." He acted surprised. "I must be mistaken then."

She laughed. "Seems to be a common occurrence."

"Hey!", he opened his mouth to protest. "You nearly knocked me out not two seconds ago and you already read me like a book!" He grinned. "That went fast!"

"Oh don't be so smug about that!", she retorted. "It just means that you're pretty transparent."  
"Was that supposed to hurt me?" He leaned in a bit and she smelled cigarettes.

"Definitely", she wanted to answer, but right then Charlotte closed the gap between them and with a thud she dropped the pile of jackets, bags and scarves to the floor right in front of Lizzie.

"¡Basta ya!", she hissed and crossed her arms defiantly in front of her chest. "I told you sock sliding in an university building is a dumb idea, but does anybody listen to me? Mierda, No! "Take this, Char", is all she says before rushing down the hallway!" She directed the last statement at the completely overwhelmed vampire-guy, he raised an eyebrow, but, Lizzie observed, also retreated several steps back, when Charlotte with hair like black lightnings turned towards him.

"And what came out of it? You could've broken your ass, careless as you are!", she cried out, an angry red rising in her cheeks.

"Charlotte, I wouldn't have-", Lizzie begun, but vampire-guy interrupted her.

"It's possible to break one's ass?", he asked, curious and amused at the same time.

"One's tail bone, to be precise", Lizzie answered with a glance sidewards, because she was still caught in a staring contest with Charlotte. "It's an ugly business, takes long and is quite painful."

"Aha", he managed to say and looked from one girl to the other. "Interesting."

"That's nothing in comparison to the fact that you could have broken both your wrists just as easily", Charlotte continued with a scowl. "And I know damn well that you still have to type your complete Kant-essay. Believe me, I wouldn't have done that."

"You wouldn't have saved me from Professor Asshole's wrath?", Lizzie asked, acting as though this information hurt her deeply.

"Who's Professor Asshole?", vampire-guy asked, a grin playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Type 2", Lizzie replied, still focused on Charlotte who seemed to be fuming with ire.

"Are you warm?", Lizzie asked curiously and obviously without thinking and Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, but vampire-guy was faster.

"Are you talking about a person or diabetes?", he chimed in, but none of the girls reacted.

"You're asking me if I'm _warm_?", Charlotte exploded right at that moment and her hair seemed to straighten up like the fur of a dog. "Of course I'm warm, Lizzie! I just carried your damn jacket, bag and shoes four storeys up and three hallways down and you ask if I feel warm?! I'll tell you something, Madame-"

"You name is Lizzie?" Again another comment from vampire-guy, he leaned a bit towards Lizzie so that she again caught the scent of cigarettes.

"Do you think it funny?!", Charlotte cried out and stared down at Lizzie with a height difference of at least five centimetres.

"No", the girl said automatically and looked at Charlotte with big eyes full of mischief.

"No?", both, Charlotte and the vampire, repeated and looked at each other in astonishment when they realized they'd spoken in unison.

Lizzie caught the symmetry of their expressions and started laughing, which caused both to blink in confusion.

"I wouldn't dare make fun of you", she assured Charlotte, having gained control over her laughing fit before she turned towards vampire-guy. "And no, my name is not Lizzie." She curtseyed. "Allow me? Septimus Sevenson, the seventh son of a seventh son, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sir." She straightened and grinned before retreating a few steps to take a run-up.

"Oh, and Charlotte?", she said, while getting her socks in place. The so addressed girl raised her chin. "It wasn't just my stuff you carried." She grinned mischievously. "The red bag contains the camera."

"Which camera?", Charlotte exclaimed, mouth agape, while Lizzie took her run-up and slid down the rest of the hallway with arms stretched out widely like some kind of bird.

"Yours of course!", she replied before crying out: "On to new adventures!" , while Charlotte lunged for the pile of garments in search for the red bag and vampire-guy looked after the mane of brown curls with a slightly askew smile.

* * *

It was somewhat self-explaining that after this episode, Lizzie would be the first one to reach the room Anne had been assigned to for her study and she stopped the power of her movements by grabbing for the door knob, which resulted in a rather undignified, albeit dramatic entrance, when she tumbled in to the laboratory.

Anne looked up and Lizzie was again surprised how little the ambergirl had changed over the last five years.

Her hair was still short and spiky, standing around her head and making her look like a pixie. She still wore piercings in her ears, even though they'd changed over the years, instead of the pink and black dots, she wore a variation of blue and green ones and a skull and a ladybird in the other ear.

Also her way of dressing was still the same. She wore her usual skinny jeans, which left her ankles bare, a pair of yellow socks with a floral pattern and black delicate leather shoes to a blue-white striped T-Shirt and a small cotton waistcoat.

"Ah", she said, when she caught sight of Lizzie and her golden eyes lit up. "Hello Lizzie, seems like you didn't get lost this time." She winked good-naturedly, it was an old joke between them, used in everyday conversations to refer to one of their first encounters, which in company caused a good deal of curious glances, when Anne asked her in front of everyone if she'd found anyone recently and Lizzie, with a roll of her eyes, answered in the negative and then proceeded to ask after crows holding keys.

"This building", Lizzie stretched out her arms, "is a labyrinth, but not big enough to get lost in it. Sooner or later you reach a staircase, that's a law of nature."

Anne raised an eyebrow. "And do these laws of nature also explain why you're not wearing shoes?"

Surprised Lizzie looked down to her feet in the blue-green socks and cocked her head. "Oh I totally forgot about that", she then said with a shrug. "They're so thick that you don't even feel it, when you're not wearing shoes."

"I know." Anne grinned. "I've knitted them."

"Of course you did." With a sigh Lizzie dropped into one of the leather chairs and watched Anne, sorting through the wires for the EEG.

"Do you know which film comes to my mind when seeing this?", Lizzie asked suddenly, knees pressed against her chest, her hands clutched into the thick wool of her socks.

"_Matrix_?", Anne asked without looking up while disentangling another knot.

"How do you know that?", Lizzie asked irritated and let go of one foot, which now dangled loosely in the air.

"Lizzie everything remembers you of _Matrix_", Anne declared with a sigh and smiled.

"That's not true!", Lizzie cried out and her curls fell in her face. She blew them away angrily. "Not _everything_ remembers me of _Matrix_!"

Anne raised an eyebrow. "When we went out to that ice cream parlour last summer with the pink interior design and the jukebox, playing only music of the 60s, you were also completely determined that we were either a part of _Grease_ or living in the Matrix."

"But that was true!", Lizzie countered and raised her chin defiantly.

"It was an ice cream parlour, Lizzie! _Grease_, okay, there was definitely some 60s flair, but _Matrix_? That's a totally different concept! At least concerning colours..."

"It was pink, Anne. Pink. Pretty near the colour you call hot pink!" She shook her head.

"Do you've got a problem with the colour pink?", Anne asked amused and tugged some errant strands of hair behind her ear.

Lizzie grinned and her green eyes lit up. "No, don't think so."

"So then, what was so horrible about the interior design if you don't have a problem with the colour? Weren't you the one, who dragged us there?"

"It's scary", Lizzie burst out and sat up. "All that pink and silver furniture, than the jukebox and the bubble gum machine... It was scary, way too perfect and artificial... I mean. did you take a good hard look? I'm sure there was not even a grain of dust on those tables!"

Anne laughed. "So if following hygiene prescriptions is your definition of scary..."

"It fulfils the Matrix-criteria", Lizzie replied, her brow furrowed.

"Lizzie, _everything_ fulfils the Matrix-criteria. That's the point of the film. " Anne shook her head softly and walked away, light-footed and with her hands outstretched. That was so typical of Anne, Lizzie thought, she made walking look like flying.

"Don't you dare call _Matrix_ a film", she threatened, but her eyes sparkled. "It's more than that."

"Yeah, I know", Anne replied in a melodious voice. "It's a philosophy, a new perspective, everything mankind ever waited for." She threw Lizzie a glare. "You abused a whole evening to explain that to me."

"It was important", Lizzie declared and held up both hands with a grin. "You've never seen _Matrix_ before."

"You were drunk, Lizzie and just wouldn't get off my couch. There was nothing left to do despite listening to you rambling after you refused to go to bed."

"Admit that those were the three most interesting hours of your life!", Lizzie demanded while arranging her feet on the chair.

Anne turned around, hands on her hips. "Yeah, I have to admit that those were the three most interesting hours of my life... listening to you trying to get out the word "illusion"." She shook her head, her amber eyes sparkling. "I never thought a sole person could disfigure a word so much."

"Hey, don't destroy _my_ illusion!"

"It's your own fault, Lizzie", Anne called out from behind the silk screen, which separated her computer from the camera. It was normally a part of Anne's apartment and coloured in a pale green with embroidered roses on one side and delicate blue flowers on the other.

"Do you want to tell me that _Matrix_ did not enrich your life?"

Anne's head appeared from behind the screen. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Anne!", Lizzie cried out and wanted to add something, when suddenly with a loud _bang_ the door sprung open and an angrily fuming Charlotte stepped in.

"Lizzie Bennet!", she nearly screamed and the volume with which she yelled these two words, made Lizzie shrink back in her seat.

"Charlotte Lucas!", she managed to get out and turned around in her seat to face her friend. "Still too warm?"

"Lizzie Bennet, don't you dare make fun of me!", Charlotte bellowed, before stumbling over one of the bags, she'd dropped to the floor beforehand.

"Charlotte Lucas, stop repeating yourself", Lizzie threw back, her cheek leaned against the back of the leather chair, a grin playing on her lips.

"You!", Charlotte spat and, with an angrily flushed face, she pointed at Lizzie, who ripped open her eyes in astonishment.

"Me?", she asked innocently and folded her hands under her chin. "What have I done now?"

"You abandoned me!", Charlotte cried out, hands still in the air.

"I abandoned you." Lizzie nodded, her chin scratching against the leather. "What else?"

"You left your stuff there!" Charlotte's eyes grew even bigger behind her glasses and scurried from Lizzie to the silk screen, where Anne could be heard typing on her keyboard.

"I left my stuff there." Again Lizzie nodded, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "Sounds quite horrible. What else?"

"You have... You.. You're kidding me!", Charlotte finally cried out slightly breathless and kicked the bags away, that blocked her path. "Anne, she's kidding me!"

"I know", was Anne's only answer from behind the silk screen and Lizzie could do naught but laugh at the sight of Charlotte's grim expression.

"Did you find your camera?", she teased and wriggled a bit on the chair until only her eyes and a head of dark brown hair were visible over the back of the chair. And her hands to both sides of her eyes, decorated with green nail varnish, some shades darker than her eyes.

"You...", Charlotte spluttered helplessly and her hand, pointing at Lizzie, trembled.

"Something else I have done?", Lizzie suggested, an eyebrow raised.

"Why didn't you tell me, you brought my camera?", Charlotte finally managed to say.

"My my, where would be the fun in that?", Lizzie asked curiously and accomplished an expression of honest interest.

"The fun?!" She got closer to the pair of green eyes over the back of the chair and Lizzie, sensing the threatening danger turned around laughingly and with a kick against the floor she rolled away and behind the silk screen, where the chair bumped against the windowsill and stopped.

"Lizzie, you abandoned me and left me there with this guy, you nearly knocked out before and who so clearly has the hots for you that he didn't even wait a second after you were gone before asking me, if your name really was _Septimus_." Charlotte had her hands on her hips but her voice was back to normal.

"Urgh, Stalker", Lizzie said and grimaced.

"Why Stalker?", Charlotte asked, brow furrowed, while getting out of her jacket. "I think it's sweet. He's definitely interested in you."

"Don't you think I would've given him my real name if I _was_ interested?", Lizzie replied and gazed out of the window. It was a beautiful day outside, sunny, a tiny piece of blue sky and some birds were visible, like black dots breaking through the blue.

"That's the problem with you, Lizzie. You're never interested." Charlotte's black eyes pierced right into Lizzies face, who was now trying hard not to look her friend in the eye.

"Yes", Anne chimed in. "If I didn't know for sure that you have a thing for guys, I would have introduced you to some of _my_ friends ages ago."

"Anne...", Lizzie complained with a grimace and threw her a look, which transported the words _Why-do-you-attack-me-from-behind-now?_ so clearly that Anne could do naught but grin. She looked like a pixie when she did that.

"Really, Lizzie. The guy was hot and he listened to every word you said. So what's you freaking problem?"

"He looks like Edward Cullen", Lizzie replied defiantly and suppressed the urge to cross her arms over her chest.

"And that's a problem to you?", Charlotte asked. "If I met someone, who looks like Robert Pattinson and asks for my name, I wouldn't be moping around here and staring out of the window."

"Thanks, Char. For _that_ piece of information."

Charlotte sighed. "I just don't get it! Ever since we moved in together, you never had a longterm relationship." She cocked her head. "If I think about it, you never had a relationship, which surpassed one night, at all." She gazed at Lizzie expectantly, but the girl just sighed and avoided her eyes.

"Lizzie?", Anne asked softly and while Lizzie was probably able to refuse Charlotte's blazing eyes, it was nearly impossible not to look at the ambergirl, if Anne wanted her to.

"He looked like a vampire", Lizzie finally muttered and crossed her arms defensively over her chest.

"So what?", Charlotte cried out, while beginning to clean up the mess, she'd made at the entrance. "He was hot, vampire or not and you owe it to every desperate Twilight-reader to even fucking try!"

"I'm not one for relationships, Charlotte!", Lizzie exclaimed and set up straight, her toes barely touching the floor, her expression strained.

"Of course you are, Lizzie Bennet! You're the relationship-type par excellence, you just don't want to admit it!" Her voice was despite its volume a bit dulled, because she was currently occupied with saving her camera from the pile of bags on the floor.

"And how would you know that?", Lizzie asked tersely and leapt to her feet, arms still crossed over her chest. "Because you've watched me go through so _many_ relationships?"

She sensed Anne standing behind her and she saw Charlotte's gaze jumping from her to Anne and how it suddenly darkened.

"I know you, Lizzie", she simply said. "And your way of letting guys only get close to you for some one-night-stands, just doesn't fit in with the way you live the rest of your life. You never do things just halfway and never just a bit. You throw yourself into it with every fibre of your being and damn the consequences! You're one for relationships, Lizzie, even if you don't want to admit it."

"I'm happy with the way I live my life, Charlotte, it works for me! So shut the hell up and don't tell me what to do!"

"That's exactly what it does, Lizzie!", Charlotte exploded for the third or fourth time that day. "It works but nothing more! You've got every freaking thing under control but how long will that last? Don't you want more? A lifelong relationship, a house, children, a decent husband?" Every word was accompanied with a movement of her hands and her hair flew wildly through the air.

"I'm 23, Charlotte, just like you! Didn't you just tell your Mum that you wouldn't marry your neighbour's son? And don't you handle one-night-stands the same way I do? So where's the analysis of your relationship ability?"

"It's not about me not wanting a relationship!", Charlotte cried out, while Anne nervously shifted from one foot to the other, words on her lips, she wasn't sure about. "I do one-night-stands, because it's the only thing guys are interested in when it comes to me. No relationship, just a peck on the cheek and a "I'll be going, babe" the next morning. But you've got everything, _everything_! The guys are all waiting for you, fuck, they nearly trip over their feet to have a chance with you and you're refusing everyone or run away the morning after, 'cause you don't even got the balls to fucking try!"

"Then go and marry that idiot from spain, if that's what you want!", Lizzie cried out angrily, a bitter taste on her tongue.

"I don't want to go back to Spain!", Charlotte yelled back completely unnerved and tore at her hair, which needed everything but more volume.

"Then don't go!", Lizzie shouted just as loud as Charlotte and both girls stared at each other, hands in fists, faces like angry grimaces.

They were both silent, staring contest, nobody wanted to give in but then the sound of clapping hands and Anne's cheerful laugh cut through the thick atmosphere.

"So there you have it. Do you feel better now?" Expectantly she looked from one girl to the other. Both of them broke eye contact and Charlotte tried a little smile in Anne's direction, who looked at them with hands clasped in front of her chest and a huge grin on her face.

Lizzies face was a mask when she turned around and grabbed her bag.

"Can I type my essay on your laptop, Annie?", she asked the ambergirl and pulled out her script from within the depths of her bag.

Anne nodded and pointed at the small table in front of the window, where her laptop waited. "But just typing, okay? No illegal downloads and no attempts at hacking my E-Mail provider, got it?"

Lizzie nodded, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Got it."

Anne looked a bit dumbstruck when Lizzie didn't try to defend her honour in her typical protesting way and she swayed a bit, then turned around on her heel to get a better look at Lizzie.

"No opposition?", she asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Do you want some?", Lizzie retorted, her gaze drifting to Charlotte, who was currently occupied with the contents of her bag.

Anne smiled softly. "Always."

Then she clapped her hands, a soft noise, that got Charlotte's attention.

"Do you want to go first?", Anne asked and held up the cap with the electrodes. Charlotte nodded and looked over to Lizzie, who seemed to be completely occupied with starting Anne's old laptop.

"Okay."

* * *

Calling the atmosphere in the room strained, while Anne secured the cap on Charlotte's head, sprayed gel into her hair and connected electrodes, would be a gross understatement.

Anne tried to lighten the mood with her way of bouncing up and down between them, her delicate arms moving like a pair of wings through the air, but her effort was for naught, Charlotte kept silent and Lizzie was completely caught up in typing down the ten page essay, she'd been doing in between classes the whole week and alternately cursing Anne's laptop and Darcy.

When Anne was finished with Charlotte (finally every electrode's light had turned green and she'd gone through some trials successfully) Lizzie at last looked up, right in time to see Charlotte leaving the room with gel clotted hair and a bottle of shampoo.

Anne, who'd been washing her hands in the washbasin near the door, caught Lizzies glance and furrowed her brow.

"What's up?", she asked and her golden eyes glowed a bit supernaturally, when the sunlight hit them.  
"Do you think she's right?" Lizzie eyes were doubtful and she chewed on the pen, she used to add some notes to her essay.

"Are you talking about Charlotte?" A tentative nod. "Do _you_ think she's right?"

Lizzie groaned exasperated. "Annie, don't do that therapist crap!"

The ambergirl shrugged and smiled. "I've got my master in psychology now, this way of questioning is only natural, I suppose."

"Last time I looked, you still needed extra education after your studies to become a therapist, doctor Freud." Lizzie rolled her eyes and placed her head on her arms, which were sprawled over the table and laptop.

"Now you're wrong, Lizzie. I'm still working on my doctor's degree, I don't have it already." She raised both eyebrows in an amused manner. "That's why you're here, right?" She held up another cap. Lizzie sighed and slowly came back onto her feet.

"Yes", she grumbled. "Let's not forget that I'm the one doing the hard work for your degree."

"Let's call it a compensation for the Matrix-evening", Anne smirked cheerily, while directing Lizzie towards the chair, Charlotte had used to sit on mere moments ago. Lizzie started protesting, unarticulated noises about why it was inexcusable to insult _Matrix_, but they quickly changed, when Anne secured the cap under Lizzies chin and she started to hiss in pain, because the clip had caught some of her hair.

"Don't be such a wimp", Anne scolded her and if Lizzie hadn't been such a paragon of restraint, she probably would have kicked her shins.

But unfortunately she wasn't five any longer and Anne wasn't Jack Goulding, the boy she'd paid back for destroying her sandcastle at the Meryton playground. Twice, to the utter horror of her mother.

Finally everything was as it should be and Anne began spraying the warm gel into her hair for better conductivity.

Lizzie with her eyes closed, tried to block out the light scratching of the needle against her scalp, Anne was one of the few people in the world, she could allow to touch her hair in a sober state without jerking back instantly.

"You know I can't do that, right Annie?", she finally asked softly, her eyes still closed.

"I know that you _think_ you can't", Anne replied. "If that makes sense."

"Oh, it makes sense", Lizzie mused. "It's just not helping."

"Do you really want help then, Lizzie?" Anne's voice was soft and questioning near her ear and Lizzie didn't dare to open her eyes, because Anne was always able to see right through her, when she made eye contact.

"I don't want to feel broken", she simply said. She sensed Anne's nod next to her ear and the ambergirl's hands on her shoulders.

"Then try", Anne said. "Meet up with the vampire or someone else. See, if a relationship develops. Open up."

Lizzie grimaced at the sound of the last words and she was freaking close to sticking out her tongue.

"Charlotte is...", Anne sighed, dropping the syringe into the washbasin. "Charlotte has to figure out for herself what she wants in life without being influenced by her mother's wishes and desires and it's not fair of her to put the blame on you."

"I know", Lizzie said quietly. "But that's Charlotte and she doesn't mean it."

Anne didn't say anything in reply, Lizzie just felt the warm pressure of her hand on her shoulder, a moment before Charlotte burst into the room with dripping wet hair, vastly improved mood and a loud story about the guy, who'd been watching her washing her hair (she'd been using the bigger washbasins in one of the bathrooms down the hallway, because they also sported warm water and so the guy probably hadn't gotten much more than a nice view on her ass).

Charlotte took photos of Lizzie after calming down and she grinned at her flatmate as if the argument from before never happened. Lizzie smiled back, posed with a peace-sign and stuck out her tongue even though Charlotte believed she would look like an angel with a docile smile and the appropriate posture.

"I'd look more like a mad scientist", Lizzie replied. She didn't like being called an angel. She was none.

* * *

A short while later, when she exited the bathroom with dripping wet hair (Charlotte hadn't left much hot water in the boiler and so forced Lizzie to wash her hair with ice water, very agreeable if you've got hair reaching your elbows) and tiptoed down the hallway, Lizzie was more than surprised to find the muscular figure and the tousled reddish brown hair of vampire-guy in front of the notice board with advertisements for test persons.

"Haven't found anything yet?", she asked softly, while trying to dry her hair with another floral towel. The so addressed vampire nearly jumped back in surprise but smiled again his 32-perfect-teeth-smile, when he recognized her.

"No, but you seem to have found something, Septimus." He bowed slightly and she just had to laugh.

"Do you know the fairy-tale?", she asked him, the blue of his eyes threatened to overwhelm her a bit.

"There's a fairy-tale to the name?", he asked curiously and leaned casually against the board, crumpling a bunch of flyers hanging there in the process.

"Yeah", she said smiling. "I don't remember the whole story. Something about a boy, who is the seventh son of a seventh son and because of that he masters every adventure on his way." She shrugged. "I liked the story, he got the princess in the end."

"I can only imagine, Septimus." He was grinning again.

"Stop calling me that, vampire", she complained and gave him a light swat against the shoulder.

"Vampire?", he asked and leaned in a bit. She felt a drop of water trickling down her jawline. "Where did you get that from?"

Oh, how she'd like to wipe that smug grin from his face! But on the other side, she was the one who started that damn vampire thing.

"What should I say? You just bear an uncanny resemblance to Robert Pattinson." She smirked.

"You should rather say that Robert Pattinson bears an uncanny resemblance to me", he replied good-naturedly. "I'm the original, everyone else is just a fake."

"You tell yourself that before sleeping every night, right?", she retorted with a slight lift of her chin.

He snorted. "I have to do _something_ to get my self-confidence back together after the last Twilight-film, don't you think?"

She cocked her head slightly. "Something tells me, that we don't need to worry for _your_ self-confidence." She risked a grin and noticed suddenly that she still wasn't wearing shoes.

"You caught me." Again the 32-perfect-teeth smile flashed up and she felt a prickling somewhere in her stomach. Lizzie returned the smile for a moment before all that staring and smiling grated on her nerves and proved to be utter ridiculous.

"So what are you doing here? Are you studying psychology?" She pointed at the notice board.

"Oh no!", he said a bit defensively and shied away from the pin board as if it had just bitten him. "I was just looking for a way to make some extra cash. I'm studying social pedagogy in the other building."

She nodded. "You should take a look at the board in the medicine buildings, the pay is better and I promise you, you won't get any strange superpowers."

"Not?" He seemed disappointed. "That's a pity, I'd like to be superman!"

"Spiderman would be a tad more likely, wouldn't it?", she asked with a laugh. "Or batman, but then you'd have to be millionaire."

He laughed but the look in his eyes got darker for a moment. "I suppose", he simply said but then his smile flashed up again and he made a step towards Lizzie.

"So you're a med student, Septimus?"

She nodded. "Yeah, fourth year now." A grin. "That's why I'm so sure about the non-existent superpowers."

"No spiders in the laboratories?"

"No spiders in the laboratories." They gazed at each other and started laughing.

"So what are you doing here in the psychology department?" He leaned in closer and again she smelled cigarettes.

"I'm helping a friend." She pointed towards the door of the laboratory. "And I probably should get back now. You know, before they start worrying about me and all that stuff..."

"All that stuff..." He smiled and she curtseyed in favour of a goodbye, but when she wanted to turn around, he grabbed her arm and forced her to stay.

"Ah Septimus..." He smiled and she had the strange feeling that all her organs started to prickle. Conveniently at the same time. "Would you deign to tell me your name?"

She smiled. "Don't you know it already?"

He shook his head. "If you want me to call you Septimus all the time..."

"Do you have a problem with the name?", she asked teasingly but gave in, when he just smiled at her.

"Lizzie Bennet", she said and put forth her hand.

"George Wickham", vampire-guy replied and shook it. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

* * *

**A/N: So did you enjoy meeting Wickham? ;) He'll be fun, I think... Anyway I'm tired and I have to pack my bag, because I'm going home for the weekend, yeah, another 5 hours in a train, after I just spent eight hours there, travelling through Germany... yikes. So I'm going now, it's ten in the evening here... and I have to get up at six, or five, I'm not sure...  
**

**To your information: Septimus Sevenson is a fairy-tale I remeber from my childhood (I know I'm not that old, certain people STILL see me as a child), I don't know if it's known outside of Germany but basically it's about what Lizzie said, a boy and adventures, a princess in the end, him being the seventh son of a seventh son helps him miracally all the time (I mean he can talk to animals, isn't that cool?) **

**Please read and review as always;) Next time: Darcy. Lots. of. it. **


	8. Chapter 7 A Dinner Part 1

**A/N: Hello, my lovelies! Here's another Lizzie/Darcy chapter (I know you've been waiting for it;) To all those, who fret that Wickham's the guy Lizzie slept with in the prologue, two things: First, Wickham's a smoker, Second, Read the prologue closely, that's all I'm going to say:) **

**Thank you for all your kind reviews, even though I feared some kind of shit storm first for bashing Edward Cullen (I'm sorry but the more I think about it the creepier this stalker/vampire thing gets). **

**To cutelilmochi: You nailed it basically, I wanted to give Lizzie some other motivation for getting close to Wickham, because I think this whole believing him on such short notice and practically demonizing Darcy is a bit immature even for Lizzie;)**

**Soundtrack: The Dirt Whispered - Rise Against**

**Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is not my own, even though I own a lot of this plot:)  
**

* * *

**Chapter 7: A Dinner Part 1: Of coughing and serial killers  
**

When Jane called, Lizzie was sitting cross-legged one one the stone tiers at the piazza in front of the British Library, her wet hair wrapped in a blue-golden scarf and piled into a turban on her head. She was kind of glad, Charlotte had remembered some "urgent stuff" she had to do and hadn't insisted on accompanying her, even though Charlotte hadn't specified the mentioned "stuff" further. Not that Lizzie wanted to know what the bloody hell she was up to.

She stared at the blinking and beeping phone for a good two minutes (Jane was kind of persistent), wondering if software designer created these displays on purpose like that, so that you just _had_ to feel bad for not answering a damn call, before she reluctantly picked up the phone and pressed it against her ear.

"Hello, Janie. What's up?", she asked, trying to sound casual, even though she didn't like being disturbed while sitting at her favourite place in the whole city.

"Lizzie? Lizzie, can you hear me?!", Jane practically screamed through the speaker and Lizzie grimaced, holding the offending phone on arm's length. Sometimes Jane's voice resembled the one of their mother alarmingly.

"Of course I can hear you, I'm not deaf you know", Lizzie declared a bit indignantly, relieved that besides her, there was only an old lady and a pair of tourists studying a map at the piazza, who were paying no attention to her at all.

"Oh, great", she heard Jane's relieved sigh and Lizzie had to smile automatically. She'd always thought, Jane's voice was doing something to her brain.

"How was your job interview?", she asked her sister and pulled her knees against her chest.

"Good", Jane replied and it felt like a deep sigh accompanied that one word, even though she couldn't possibly hear that through the continuous noise. "It went really well, the headmaster was very friendly and from what I've seen of the school, I believe I could be really happy there. Imagine, Lizzie, they have an integration- and support programme for handicapped children, as well as regular crafts and art classes!"

"Sounds like a primary school to me", Lizzie muttered with a grin, unable to resist a bit of irony.

"What did you say?", Jane asked, louder than strictly necessary. Her sister had the surprising ability to overhear things, she doesn't want to hear. Intentional or not, Lizzie wasn't so sure about that.

"Nothing", she assured Jane with a laugh. "Are you sitting in the middle of a fucking snowstorm right now?"

"No, why would you think that?", Jane asked slightly puzzled. "And quit the cursing, young lady."

"It just sounds that way", Lizzie grinned. "I was on the verge of asking if Charlie had finally abducted and dragged you to the north pole so that you two could get some one on one time."

"Lizzie!", Jane hissed and Lizzie rolled her eyes. "Here we go again..."

"Lizzie, please be polite, we-"

"But why, it's quite plausible", she interrupted her sister. "With all those freaking house guests at your apartment, it's inevitable that you two desire-"

"Lizzie", the voice of her sister grew even shriller and Lizzie had to grin, because Jane got so het up about this bit of teasing. "Believe me, being stuck with Darcy and Caroline in one apartment would also grate on my nerves. I mean seriously, those two can creep the hell out of you!"

"Lizzie-", her sister began anew, but this time another voice interrupted her. "Hey, Miss Bennet!"

"Charlie?", Lizzie asked surprised and a little alarmed, when she recognized the voice of her sister's boyfriend.

"Yeah, it's me, just thought you should now that you're put on speaker phone and that we can all hear you pretty clearly."

"Who exactly is "_we_"?" , Lizzie asked cautiously and felt the heat rising in her cheeks.

"Oh just Jane, me and Darcy..."

"Jane!", Lizzie cried out horrified. "Why didn't you bloody tell me?"

"I tried!", Jane started to explain, "But you wouldn't let me!"

"I wouldn't let you?", Lizzie repeated and startled the old lady with her shriek, who clearly outraged glared at the girl with the scarf around her head and practically sent daggers in her direction. Yeah, old lady in pink was a hell lot of scary. "Jane, that's the first fucking thing you say, when you're starting a conversation, that includes two other _invisible_ participants! Are the four words: "Lizzie, you're put on speaker phone" really too much to ask?"

"I counted five words", Charlie interjected. "If you leave out the name that is."

"Prepositions don't count, Charlie", Lizzie retorted and sorted out her legs. Damn, stone tiers could really get uncomfortable.

"Since when?", Jane asked irritated. Charlie laughed. "Since Lizzie forgot to count them."

"Hey, don't tell on me, Charlie", Lizzie bristled, but Charlie just showed his typical reaction and laughed. "Sorry, Liz."

"Urgh, don't call me that!", Lizzie pleaded and grimaced.

"Do you prefer Eliza?", Charlie asked, still laughing. Honestly, did he ever stop?

"Sure, if you're so eager to see the interior design of a forensic medicine building", Lizzie deadpanned and Charlie laughed again – really, it was getting kind of scary. What the F. Scott Fitzgerald did this guy take for medication?

"Where's Caroline by the way?", she asked in order to get the conversation back to normal.

"Still sleeping", Charlie replied and even though Lizzie couldn't possibly see his face through the telephone, it sounded like he thought that teeny tiny fact highly amusing. But Charlie found everything amusing, so perhaps the word "gloating" was more appropriate.

"She's sleeping?", Lizzie repeated surprised. "But it's four o'clock in the bloody afternoon!"

"If I remember correctly, you also managed to do that at one point, Lizzie", Jane reprimanded her, the silent _"Stop cussing"_ hung in the air.

Lizzie snorted. "Yeah, but I don't get up in between, do my make-up and eat fruits while sitting on the freaking breakfast table... even though I fell asleep on the kitchen counter one time..."

"Sounds interesting", Charlie replied laughing. "Also with make-up and fruits?"

"With make-up, yeah, because I forgot to scrub it off the night before and with fruits because Charlotte placed the damn pineapple, I bought at_ Little Waitrose, _in my arms and proceeded to take my picture..."

Lizzie shook her head and grimaced at the thought of the rather wild night, that had taken place before that photo. Bad memories shouldn't be allowed to come out and play in broad daylight.

"Is Charlotte still using it as blackmail material?", Jane asked sympathetically, while Charlie was fighting just another laughing fit.

"Yeah", Lizzie drawled. "I really have to steal her fucking laptop some time soon, or kill her if that doesn't work, because it can't go on like that..."

"Are you looking for an assassin, Lizzie?", Charlie asked.

"Yeah, do you know somebody?" She could faintly hear a snort, somewhere in the middle of the static noise and she was pretty sure, it was Darcy.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Lizzie, but that's not exactly my scene", Charlie replied good-naturedly and she laughed. "Good, because that would be kind of scary."

"Yeah", Jane deadpanned. "And I would have to ask myself, who my boyfriend of nearly six months really is."

"Charles Manson?", Lizzie suggested, a lopsided grin on her face.

"If anything, it would be Patsy Adams", Darcy's voice crawled into her ear and she felt shivers running down her spine. "Manson was a serial killer."

"Yeah, but Adams is living in exile in Spain", Lizzie threw back and rolled her eyes.

"And Manson is serving a life sentence somewhere in the USA", Darcy retorted curtly.

"Hmm, so have you decided now if I'm a killer for the Mafia or a psychopathic Beatles fan? That would be great, because then we could go back to our plans for this evening", Charlie interjected.

"Sure, Charlie, shoot!", Lizzie replied without thinking and it took her a moment before it dawned on her what she'd just said and it took another five minutes until Jane and Charlie had calmed themselves enough to talk again.

"So, what I wanted to say was that we want to celebrate Jane's successful job interview, our visit to the furniture shop and generally her moving in with me with a nice, little dinner", Charlie explained and she could faintly hear Jane's laugh through the speaker.

"It's not sure, if I got the job, Charlie", Jane admonished him with a giggle.

"Of course it is!", Charlie exclaimed and then a bit lower. "Who wouldn't want you, my angel?"

Lizzie grimaced at the whole sweet-talk, tumbling out of her phone and she tried to imagine Darcy's face, when he had to sit in a car with those two love birds, who were worse than a pair of freaking birds on a summer morning. Suicidal might be a fitting description. Or murderous. Dangerously close to a car crash right into the next Starbucks even. That would also be _political_.

"Just to get it right...", she interrupted the cooing and shooing. "All three of you are sitting in that car at the moment?"

"Is that so strange?", Charlie asked amused.

"No, I'm only trying to imagine which one of you is sitting on the back seat", Lizzie explained and gazed at the blue sky over London.

"Me and Janie. Why do you ask?", Charlie answered and Lizzie laughed. "What, Darcy, you didn't let him drive?", she teased.

"It's my car, Miss Bennet", Darcy retorted ill-humoured.

"Oh, did the sweet darling survive the night in a strange parking-lot?", she asked curiously. "Did it miss you? You know, homesickness can be a real bitch sometimes."

"It endured the night quite well, Miss Bennet."

"I'm glad to hear it", Lizzie replied with a grin, Darcy couldn't see. "And you're the only one who is allowed to drive this precious vehicle?"

"I prefer it."

Lizzie snorted and mumbled something, which distinctly sounded like "Men".

"However", Jane interjected with strained cheerfulness and Lizzie could well imagine her sister, sitting on the back seat, uncomfortably watching Darcy and the mobile-phone at the same time, as if one of them would snap and bite her at any given moment. Her sister was paranoid.

"We want to eat at "_Heaven's_", Lizzie", she added as an explanation.

"That high-class, posh restaurant?", the girl with the scarf around her head cried out, angering the old lady in pink even further, who was now angrily waving around her cane in Lizzies direction. Yeah, not scary at all.

"Do you know it?", Darcy asked in his typically condescending tone. .

"Sure, Darcy, I eat there every other Wednesday, right after my shopping trip at Prada and Gucci", Lizzie replied and rolled her eyes.

"Charlie has reservations there for eight o'clock and we want you to come with us", Jane asked quickly and rather desperate for a change in topics.

"For eight o'clock! My, my, Charlie, what a rebel you are!", Lizzie teased and got Charlie laughing again.

"If Caroline heard that..", he mused, "But you should actually thank Darcy. He got us the reservations!"

"What?", Jane cried out. "But I thought it was you!"

"Charlie likes to take the credit for things like that", Darcy replied and Lizzie could hear the roar of the engine.

"And you're helping him with that?", Lizzie chimed in, but Darcy's answer was cut short, when Jane asked her boyfriend rather loudly, why for heaven's sake (Jane's version of the F-word) he hadn't told her that. Lizzie knew that tone well and when she was also using her bright blue eyes on him, the poor guy was lost.

It also seemed to work on Charlie, because he sounded rather meek, when he assured Jane that lying to her had been the furthest thing from his mind. Their mutual affirmations grew sweeter with the minute and Lizzie tried to suppress her gag reflex.

Seemed like Darcy felt the same.

"Bingley, could you please for once concentrate on the bloody conversation?", he admonished his friend rather grumpily and she swore, she heard _someone_ cursing under his breath.

"Yes, of course!", Charlie hurried to say. "As I said, we would like you to come and eat dinner with us, Lizzie. Eight o'clock at "_Heaven's_". My treat."

"How could I resist such a temptation!", Lizzie replied with a laugh and watched how the tourists opened their lunch boxes, much to the vexation of the old lady in pink.

"Splendid!", Charlie cried out and Lizzie could well imagine him bouncing on his seat like a little boy on a sugar overdose.

"Great", Jane exclaimed in the same manner. "And put on something _appropriate_, Lizzie."

"Why the bloody hell does everyone tell me that?", Lizzie cried out exasperated and startled the other three visitors, the tourists included while the old lady waved her cane again. "What the fuck do you think I'll do? Show up at one of the poshest restaurant of the whole fucking city in nothing but a catsuit? Dancing tango with stickers on my nipples and a feather boa around my neck?"

"Lizzie...", Jane tried to soothe her while Charlie giggled like a girl in the background. Darcy said nothing.

"No, Jane, you've hurt me. Deeply. _Fucking_ deeply. Like, Mariana Trench deep. Imagine _that_, dear sister. Only because I wrap a scarf around my head when my hair is wet, doesn't mean that I've got no style or will go out in nothing but a tube top barely covering my ass!"

"You're wearing a scarf around you head?", Jane and Charlie repeated at the same time.

"What? That's all you get from this exchange?" She shook her head. "It's a pretty scarf", Lizzie defended herself and tugged at the fringe of the scarf, that fell into her face.

"It's a scarf", Charlie deadpanned the minute Jane cried out: "But not that silk scarf I bought for your birthday, right?!"

"Of course not, Janie", Lizzie replied seriously. "I bought just the same scarf with just the same golden pattern at Camden Town just to wrap it around my head when I feel like it."

"Lizzie!"

"Right, that's my name", Lizzie retorted before this conversation became too ridiculous even for her taste.

"Let's meet at the restaurant at eight and I promise to wear something decent, all right? You know, something covering all the important bits and pieces."

"It's a deal, Lizzie", Charlie replied before Jane could utter another reprimand and the following silence, Lizzie interpreted as Darcy's farewell.

Heart-warming as usual.

* * *

Lizzie Bennet was too late, when she ran down the crowed streets at quarter past eight towards the restaurant, where she was supposed to meet the rest of their group.

She'd dressed appropriately, just as Jane had wanted her to, perhaps not exactly the way her sister had imagined, but Lizzie knew London well enough to know that "_Heaven's_" wasn't a particular conservative venue, despite being one of the most expensive ones and that they didn't demand formal attire as an entry ticket.

However, for the sake of her dear sister, she'd made a bit more of an effort with her appearance tonight, even though most of her clothing was stolen from Charlotte's wardrobe.

She wore a flowing, black skirt, patterned tights and stockings with a lace ending, which ended right above her black lace boots. Add to that a long sleeved blue Print-Shirt and a vast amount of clinking silver bracelets around her wrists, which blinked and sparkled in the dancing lights of the shops and cars.

She'd even pinned up her hair (after taking off the scarf, her hair had been quite a mess and she hadn't even attempted to tame it with a brush) and in this artful disorder of a bird's nest over her neck, she'd woven some other silver bracelets.

Lizzie wasn't a big fan of make-up, some mascara on her lashes, a bit of eyeliner around her eyes when she was in the mood, but nothing more. She didn't like having some kind of paste sticking to her skin, which would sooner or later get all over her hands and clothes if she wasn't careful and she hated not being able to rub her temples in frustration without destroying some carefully constructed artwork.

Same went for lipstick, she'd never met a guy, who actually _liked_ getting bloody red paint all over his face and she didn't enjoy the taste of it at all.

She slowed down her steps, took in the crisp night air, which was comparatively warm for October and enabled her to wear only a thin jacket over her shirt. She wasn't eager to reach the restaurant, for apparent reasons. An evening with both Darcy and Caroline? She'd even prefer one with Craig and his shooting games over that.

With a sigh she took the last few steps of the staircase, that led towards the restaurant, grateful that she hadn't put on a pair of ridiculous High Heels this time. She gave the bouncer a wide smile and asked the maître d' for a table under the name "Darcy", to which she was promptly led, all the while taking in the incredible interior of the restaurant with those unbelievably high ceilings, imitating the night sky and the concrete walls painted in blue and white. The dark wooden tables with the lilac coloured lanterns were partly separated by long silk panels in blue and white and Lizzie suddenly understood were the name of the restaurant came from.

As expected with her tardiness of approximately fifteen minutes, everyone else was already assembled. Jane smiled in relief, when she caught sight of Lizzie and stood up to greet her little sister. Charlie did the same, while Caroline, clad in a rather revealing, turquoise dress just nodded with a hint of disdain, visible in her slightly wrinkled nose and the twitch of her lips. Darcy's gaze on the other hand seemed to be stuck somewhere at his wrists and, dressed in his typical button down shirt and a tie (thankfully not the one with the ducks), he also only nodded in acknowledgement, when she sat down between Jane and Caroline.

"My, my, Eliza", Caroline began with such a sweet smile that Lizzies teeth started to ache. "Is tardiness a common occurrence with you?"

"As long as the London railway system doesn't start to be punctual on a regular basis, there is nothing I can do about it, _Carol_", Lizzie retorted and flipped open the menu, the waiter had offered her. "The Northern Line had a power outage somewhere along the road", she added as an explanation when she saw Jane's questioning gaze. "Nothing severe, but delays as usual." Jane nodded, while Caroline with her mouth wide open looked at Lizzie in horror.

"You're taking the tube?, she asked appalled and Lizzie suddenly remembered why she disliked Caroline besides her usual bitchiness - her voice tore apart every tympanic membrane in her way and she meant that, _literally_.

Even Darcy seemed to cringe at her outburst, but the gaze he directed at Lizzie over the rim of his menu was just as horrified.

"Without a car there is no other way for me in this city to get from point A to point B, or is there?", Lizzie retorted with a smile. "Oh, don't be afraid, Carol", she added and patted the diamond clad wrist of the blonde in what was supposed to be a reassuring gesture. "They only take out the knifes when they are in the mood to play and it doesn't hurt so much after the third time."

Charlie laughed at her remark while Jane on Lizzies other side kicked her shin, which her sister only answered with a smirk, despite the pain coursing through her leg.

Darcy, just like Jane, also didn't seem to think her retort funny in any way, but he didn't resort to shin kicking (thank goodness) and just cleared his throat. "I was under the impression that you owned a car, Miss Bennet", he said stiffly and gazed at her out of dark, brooding eyes.

"Not mine", Lizzie replied simply, while perusing the menu – too many dishes with too many, too complicated names and way too high prices in her opinion.

"Oh, did you stole it, Eliza?", Caroline promptly asked and Lizzie, who'd hoped that she'd shut Caroline up for good, reluctantly looked up from the menu.

"Oh yeah, it was standing in front of my door on Friday and when none of my neighbours were looking, I broke in the window and short-circuited the engine", she answered with a grin, which faded into a sigh when she caught Jane's facial expression. "It belongs to a friend of mine", she explained, which promptly lit up Caroline's pale blue eyes.

"Oh what kind of friend?", she purred and waggled her eyebrows.

"A _friend_", Lizzie stated explicitly, wishing that Jane was for once not thoroughly occupied with perusing the menu together with Charlie. "I can't tell you his name, because I fear, that Darcy would probably fill out a complaint because of parking-lot theft."

"You know well enough, Miss Bennet, that such a statutory offence does not exist", Darcy replied without looking at Caroline, who seemed to be eating him up with her eyes alone, a circumstance, which caused a great deal of satisfaction for Lizzie.

"It sounded quite different on Friday", Lizzie teased and directed her irritatingly green eyes at Darcy in a somewhat successful imitation of Caroline's antics. She smirked and bit back a laugh, when the professor began squirming awkwardly on his chair and tugging on the knot of his tie.

"Found something you like?", Charlie chimed in a that moment, his and Jane's cheeks conspicuously flushed.

Caroline seemed to deem this a successful change of topic, because she loudly began to lament the fact that she could eat naught but salad at this restaurant when she wanted to keep her figure and that in no way someone should take the self-made pasta dish, because that one was just a mass of undiluted calories.

Lizzie, who had been thinking about taking a salad, basically because she'd already eaten Chinese for lunch, decided on the pasta dish on short notice, just to see how Caroline would take that.

She was more than surprised when Darcy chose the same.

After the waiter had taken up their orders and brought them their drinks (wine for everyone but Darcy), there was a lull in the conversation and Lizzie, wanting to avoid another of Caroline's pointed remarks, started asking questions about Jane and Charlie's trip to the furniture store and listened to their discussion about new lamps and interior designs with which they wanted to improve their apartment.

Caroline seemed to find this topic way more interesting than Lizzie and threw herself fervently into the discussion about whether or not new lamps in the dining area were a good idea.

Lizzie saw the desperation in Jane's eyes, while Caroline, gesturing wildly with her glass of wine, explained to her with a sluggish growing voice the advantages of Venetian glass – Lizzie suspected that this wasn't the first drink, Caroline had consumed that day. Jane smiled and nodded but her gaze scurried towards her little sister in a silent plea for help and Lizzie tried to find a topic in order to distract Caroline, when she caught Charlie's eye, who just nodded wordlessly before raising his voice and effectively cut his sister off.

"And how are you, Lizzie? Did you finish your essay on time?", he asked with a smile and placed his hand on Jane's, who grabbed it gratefully.

Lizzie also smiled, while Caroline turned back to her glass of wine with a huff. "Everything's finished and ready to be printed", she replied and winked.

"So fast?", Darcy asked and looked up from his phone, behind which he'd effectively hidden ever since the waiter stole his menu.

"It was already finished this morning", Lizzie explained with a shrug and took a sip of her wine. "It only needed to be typewritten."

"Why didn't you say that before, Lizzie?", Charlie cried out, clearly focused on keeping the conversation alive in order to get Caroline away from his girlfriend. "Then I wouldn't have had to beg your professor for a little bit of free time."

Lizzie grinned mischievously. "I just wanted to see if good ol' Darcy has a heart", she replied and with a slight jangling of her earrings, she threw back her head a little.

Charlie snorted. "It would have been easier to just kill and dissect him", he said with a grin, which Darcy only answered with a slight raising of an eyebrow, before he, as if sensing the danger, opened his phone again, when Caroline leaned in to him.  
"Jane, are you absolutely sure that your boyfriend really isn't some Mafia killer?", Lizzie asked and shook her head. Jane laughed and squeezed Charlie's hand, who also fell into the laughter.

"I'm a paediatrician, Lizzie. Get used to it."

"Just like everyone else has to...", Caroline muttered into her glass of wine and created one of these absolutely wonderful silences, that always feel like someone just deflated some balloons. Darcy and Charlie were looking disapprovingly at Caroline, who just stared at the red liquor in her glass, while Jane helplessly but silently asked Lizzie for advice. The girl with the green eyes just sighed before grabbing Caroline's glass of wine (practically ripping it from her tight grip) and exchanging it with Darcy's one, which was filled with water.

"To many calories", she simply said, when Caroline stared at her, mouth agape and with glassy eyes like some kind of drunk Barbie. "You better drink some water if you want to stick to your diet plan."

Caroline made some helpless gestures towards Darcy, but he, with his incredible presence of mind, had gulped down the rest of the wine and placed the glass out of her reach, deliberately ignoring her outstretched hands, which made her look like some sullen child, whose lolly he'd just stolen.

"How did the study go?", Jane asked, trying to distract everyone from a sulking Caroline, who stared at the spot on the table, where her glass had been previously. Charlie looked at his girlfriend in silent adoration.

"Oh, it went well", Lizzie replied. "I got my whole head covered with gel and Charlotte was so mean to use up all the hot water in the boiler, but other than that all went according to plan, the electrodes were all working and the presentations went without a hitch."

"Oh, that's good", Jane said and smiled.

"Yes, it is", Lizzie muttered and thought about George, the vampire-guy, who'd given her his phone number, after she'd said, she couldn't remember hers. The receipt, where he wrote it down, was still in the back pocket of her jeans.

"What kind of study are you talking about?", Darcy suddenly asked and when Lizzie looked up, she caught him staring at her blatantly.

"EEG", she replied curtly, her mind still thinking about the fucking receipt in her jeans at home. All the while Charlie was staring intently at his sister's slightly lowered head, as if he could make her see reason this way - his mental powers were absolutely frightening.

"The one from the Internal Medicine department?", Darcy asked, an eyebrow raised, and Lizzie felt something tighten in her stomach region when he looked at her. "But their participants are all well over sixty, if not older."

"Perhaps Lizzie forgot to tell us something", Charlie joked but his smile was forced.

"No", Lizzie replied without taking her eyes off Darcy. "Not medicine, I -"

But she wasn't able to finish that sentence because right at that moment the waiter came with their meals and Caroline finally raised her eyes from her plate, when the salad bowl was placed in front of her – Lizzie thought she looked like some disillusioned rabbit and she was only waiting for Caroline's eyes to start rolling like a freaking bowling ball.

During the meal Jane and Charlie kept the conversation alive with their discussion about their plans for tomorrow and they invited both, Lizzie and Darcy, to visit Kensington Gardens with them. Both of them declined, Darcy because he pretended he needed to work and Lizzie because she had no inclination to spend another day watching the lovesick couple, when the only buffer was Caroline or even worse, _Darcy_.

In the meantime Caroline seemed to revive again, the few lettuce leaves, she picked up from her plate and shredded in her mouth seemed to fulfil their part.

"And Lizzie", Charlie asked after a while, during which he and Jane discussed the manifold activities a couple could indulge in at Kensington Gardens, while Darcy attacked his pasta with a scowl on his face and Caroline picked leaf after leaf up and chewed on it. "Do you know what you want to do when you've finished your medical degree?"

Lizzie, who'd just picked up some noodles with her fork, looked up and shook her head. "Sorry, Charlie, but I don't really have a plan."

"Why doesn't that surprise us?", Caroline muttered, which brought her some icy glares from both, Charlie and Darcy, while Jane furrowed her brow and Lizzie only shoved some more pasta in her mouth.

"Do you know which part of medicine you want to specialise in?", Darcy asked and she felt his gaze on her.

"In no way it will be research, that's for sure", Lizzie replied drily. "Or the academic path for that matter." She winked at Darcy. "Sorry."

The professor only acknowledged the remark with a curt nod.

"Do you have any preferences concerning the different possibilities, Lizzie?", Charlie asked, all the while observing Caroline out of the corner of his eye.

"Hmm, let me see, Paediatrics is definitely up front", Lizzie mused with a smile, slightly swaying the glass of wine in her hand, which Caroline watched with a rather hungry expression on her face. "Eventually Neurology, but I'm pretty much open for everything."

A snort. "We know that..." Again Caroline who leaned towards Darcy in a conspirational manner.

"Perhaps you should drink some water, Caroline", the professor simply suggested and with a disapproving glare, handed her the glass of water, which the blonde the blonde woman took with a flutter of her eyelashes and a husky "Thank you, William". Oh yes, Caroline Bingley was back under the living.

"Don't you have a training phase soon, Lizzie?", Jane asked, drawing reassuring patterns on Charlies palm.

"Yeah, there'll be a lot of people from different hospitals this week, who will tell us all about the different training possibilities they have", Lizzie explained with sparkling eyes, while picking up some more noodles.

"Do you have any preferences concerning hospitals?", Charlie asked with a smile, his gaze always scurrying towards Caroline.

"I take what I can get", Lizzie answered, which resulted in another snort from Caroline. Lizzie grinned and wondered how long it would take until Caroline's throat was sore from all the snorting she did.

"Really, I'm not picky." Snort.

"I don't care, who wants me." Snort.

"I'll just go for the highest bidder." Another snort but this time Caroline choked so unfortunately on it that she started coughing and gasping for air. Lizzie patted her on the back with a sympathetic smile, while Darcy gave her another glass of water.

"Na, Na, Na, Caroline, you should really get some lozenge if your cough doesn't get better. It sounds really bad, you know", Lizzie remarked, patting her another few times on the back, which brought the coughing blonde's face dangerously close to her massacred salad.

"Lizzie", Jane hissed and grabbed her sister's other arm. Lizzie looked up and arched an eyebrow. "What's up, hun?"

Jane just looked at her warningly and with a roll of her eyes Lizzie refrained from further pats on the back, while the blonde tried to regain her senses. Charlie in the meantime looked like he had no idea if he should rather laugh or scream and Darcy thought it best to make a bit of conversation.

"So you don't have any plans regarding your future, Miss Bennet?", he asked and Lizzie swore by all that was holy, he raised his freaking eyebrow only so high to provoke her.

"No", she replied and directed her sparkling green eyes on his face, the blueish light at "_Heaven's_" drew sharp, unknown shadows across his face and for a moment it only seemed to consist of rough edges and strange angles. "I want to finish my degree and do my residency at a hospital, that's for sure. Other than that, I don't know, but I think I have enough of this thing called time to make such a life altering decision, don't you agree?"

"It's never too soon to make plans, Miss Bennet", Darcy retorted and placed his fork and spoon neatly next to his empty plate. He was already finished, she noticed in astonishment, while she didn't even manage half of it.

"Fine, Darcy, then I start right now if you freaking want me to. After finishing my degree, I'll go back to Africa. Are you satisfied?" She stared at him, a silent challenge in her eyes and even though he opened his mouth to answer her, someone else was even faster.

"A-Africa?", she heard Jane's shaking voice and Lizzie turned around in surprise to see her sister, white as the concrete wall behind her, she'd dropped her knife and fork with a clinking noise and looked at Lizzie with big blue eyes. "Why Africa?"

* * *

**A/N: Uh, didn't I tell you it was a cliffie? Upps! However, the next chapter is approximately twice the lenght of this one, so it will take some time, I think (or not, because I really like the next one;) If you want to get an idea what it's about, listen to "Soul on Fire" von EMA (Cover of Danzig), need I say more?  
**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and that my english wasn't so bad, thanks to all those who read, review, follow and favourite and as always:**

**Reviews appreciated!**


	9. Chapter 8 A Dinner Part 2

**A/N: Oh hey I'm back! Sorry for the delay, I'm back at Uni for a few weeks now, but I did a lot of travelling and all that stuff, besides this chapter is fairly long, as are the next two chapters (next one is over 13000 words, I'm sorry) before we reach the limit of my prewritten stuff and updates will get fewer because I have to write the german stuff first (I told you it's a work in progress:) and seriously, I don't know how much time I'll have until August...**

**Thanks a lot for all your reviews and your overal support (the best reaction to the last chapter: wonderwoman1970: Lol;) seriously, it made me laugh;) **

**If you want to get an idea how Lizzie and Darcy look in my mind, imagine a _young_ Nina Hagen (she's a german punk singer with an incredible presence and personality) with a lot less make-up and green eyes (seriously, check it out on google:) and for Darcy, imagine that croatian doctor from ER (so Goran Visnijc) but that's only a rough idea;)  
**

**IMPORTANT!:**

**This chapter deals with drug abuse, if this is a sensitive subject to some of you, I'm sorry, I tried my best to be accurate and tried not to hurt anyones feelings... however leaving it out would mean not writing this story, so if I offend you, don't read but I'm always open to constructive criticism;)**

**Okay, I know I get a bit dramatic, but you have to read and check out this music before reading, because otherwise some things won't make sense;)**

**Hotel Song - Regina Spektor (Important if you want to understand the Darcy/Lizzie conversation about fear;)**

**Soul on Fire - EMA (like I told you last tim, it's really important, just listen to it while reading:) **

**Disclaimer: This chapter is so AU, I think it's safe to say, a lot of it comes from my head, the rest... you know whom to thank and praise for it;)**

* * *

**Chapter 8: A Dinner Part 2 Of Bad Karma And Even Worse Trips  
**

Lizzie Bennet had known that this was a fault.

She'd known it the moment the barely intelligible announcement had sounded throughout the underground-station Camden Town and the destination boards had started blinking madly. Power outages were never a good omen. Short-circuits, maintenance work, even engineers, who suffered electro shocks while working on the power lines, all that was bad karma and she should have taken both her head and her feet, marched back into her apartment, screwed Charlotte and her bad moods and Craig's shooting games and hid under her freaking blanket till all of this was over and done with.

But she just had to be stubborn, headstrong even and therefore waited for the freaking underground train, while playing DoodleJump on her mobile-phone, only because she couldn't take disappointing her sister.

_Damn Jane and her fucking puppy eyes!, _she thought growling, when she stood up and marched over to the dance-floor. They were only a few couples dancing on the slightly higher platform from which the waiters had removed the tables and chairs, stumbling and swaying to music, which was neither fast enough for erratic movements nor slow enough to waltz.

But it was loud, drowned out everything and she couldn't hear him even though she knew he was not far behind her. She turned around and stared at his chest, because his head was towering thirty fucking centimetres above her and she winced, when he put a hand around her waist.

_Fine_, she thought and gritted her teeth, placing her fingertips on the side of his ribcage while taking his outstretched hand with the other and forced herself to raise her chin and look up.

_You can do that_, she urged herself on and with a sudden jerk of her head, green met black.

"_Devil-girl you must burn..."_

A dark, dark colour with no end whatsoever.

* * *

"Africa?", Jane asked, her bright blue eyes big and round like saucers. Lizzie felt how the heat left her face and ran down her neck, when she disentangled herself from Darcy's eyes and looked at Jane.

Charlie's gaze was worried and scurried from one Bennet-sister to the other, the fork with some rocket impaled on it, stopped mid-way, while Caroline seemed to have found a new favourite topic, because she watched the scene with renewed interest.

"It's not sure, Janie. Nothing's sealed", Lizzie tried to reassure her sister. The bad conscience she felt for becoming so provoked by Darcy that she'd said something so thoughtless, took over and she patted Jane's bare forearm. "It'll also take a while until I'm finished with Uni, you know that."

"But then why do you say things like that?", Jane asked and in the strange light at the restaurant, she looked again like the little, six-year-old girl, who'd asked her mother why the kids at the playground where so mean to her.

"It's not important", Lizzie tried to appease her and smiled a bit cautiously, which Jane only answered with another furrow of her brow. Lizzie sighed. "Mus called me a few weeks ago in order to persuade me to come with him for a short trip this summer. We started talking as always and he mentioned that his organization was still desperately seeking new doctors for their programs and he pointed it out as an alternative for me." Lizzie shrugged, while shredding her pasta to pieces with her knife and fork. "You know Mus, Janie."

"But of course", Jane said a bit hollowly, her lips tightly pressed together. Lizzie sighed.

"And?", Charlie asked, desperate to continue the conversation. "Are you going to travel to Africa this summer with Mus, or whatever that guy's name is?"

Lizzie turned to him, while still observing Jane's pale face out of the corner of her eye. Charlie's cheerful expression was utter guileless and bore no second thoughts, but Lizzie was still wondering how much exactly he knew.

She shook her head, but before she could formulate an answer, Caroline interrupted her with her usual shrill and screeching voice. "Africa?", she cried out. "What are you talking about, Charles? Who's going to travel to Africa during summer? That's nearly as trashy as Miami during that season! All that sweat and dirt! Not to mention the bad sanitary facilities!"

"I can assure you, the facilities there are up to the standards of every European hospital", Lizzie replied with a smile. It had been one of Mus' biggest projects and the one he was the most proud of, because it had taken years of sweet-talking to politicians and rich business-people to finally realize something that would decrease the infection rate drastically by some simple means of hygiene.

Caroline just snorted and Lizzie concluded that she probably wasn't really good at learning lessons.

"So you are going to fly over to Africa?", Charlie asked, the smile around his mouth a little too tight to distract from his agitation.

Lizzie shook her head. "I wanted to, but the travel dates collided with finals, so sadly it won't happen."

"I'm sorry", Charlie replied sympathetically and Lizzie shrugged. "If I'm lucky, it'll work out next year. If not, I'm going to use one of my training phases for it."

"You are aware of the fact that theses phases are supposed to provide you with new experiences, Miss Bennet, aren't you? But this won't be the case if you repeatedly work for one and the same organization", Darcy interjected and a quick glance to the side told her that he was still staring at her. Did he have problems with his neck or something?

"Yeah, because Africa is something, that becomes a routine pretty fast. Like _really_ fast", Lizzie replied and rolled her eyes.

"Well, I can't imagine flying over to Africa that often!", Caroline cried out and placed her hand on Darcy's forearm in what was supposed to be a gesture of support.

"Who's talking about flying, Carol?", Lizzie grinned. "We're taking the boat of course!"

"The boat?!", Caroline echoed and various other guest at the neighbouring tables looked up in irritation. "How can one take the boat?! William, darling, say something! She just can't take the boat to Africa!"

"William, darling" didn't seem to appreciate this way of address, because with an expression on his face, that would be appropriate for the dissection of an insect, he pried Caroline's claws from his forearm – Lizzie wondered if her nails would leave scars – and put another glass of water in front of her. "I believe that Miss Bennet was not speaking the truth, Caroline", he said stiffly and avoided the rather desperate looking pale blue eyes.

"Sure, Darcy", Lizzie replied with a grin and raised her glass as if to toast. "We don't want it becoming a routine, do we?"

"Honey", one of the next addresses, Caroline threw at Darcy to his complete and utter misery, was spared an answer, because the waiter came to collect their plates and Lizzie suddenly realized that she was the only one, who hadn't finished her meal. Nonetheless, she put down her fork and spoon and when Jane glanced at her in silent worry, she assured her that she'd already had Chinese for lunch. Her reply seemed to draw a smile out of Jane and she asked Lizzie in a more relaxed manner, if the reanimation had worked to which Lizzie just smiled.

The music became louder, a mix of classics and alternative-rock-bands and the waiter began to remove the furniture from the dance-floor. Lizzie saw Darcy's expression and wondered if he was aware that "_Heaven's_" regularly became a night-club after half past ten. A very expensive, pretty elitist night-club of course.

Caroline began begging Darcy for a dance the minute Charlie escorted Jane to the dance-floor so that they could dance to a cover-version of James Blunt's "_You're beautiful_", but not before providing some conversation for the leftovers, when he asked Darcy with a glance towards Lizzie, what he thought about Africa.

"It's hot", was Darcy's unbelievably eloquent answer to the question, which Lizzie didn't even deem with a response and what kind of conversation was complicated by the loud music, was utterly destroyed by Caroline's tirades.

Lizzie spend her time alternately sipping on her wine and watching Jane and Charlie dancing cavity-inducing-sweetly together, while Charlie whispered sweet-nothings in her ear, which had her sister blushing furiously within minutes.

Yeah...Lovebirds... it was nauseating.

Then suddenly Caroline stood up, when all her begging and whining proved to be unsuccessful to soften the iron grip Darcy seemed to have on his heart (or whatever machine was pumping the blood through his veins), and made her way over to the bathroom to "powder her nose" as she put it and Lizzie didn't doubt her even though she probably wouldn't need cosmetic products for _that_.

What surprised her greatly on the other hand, was Darcy's deep, raspy voice sounding way closer to her ear than she was comfortable with, when the professor leaned forward and whispered darkly: "Don't you dance, Miss Bennet?"

She looked at him in surprise. "I never thought, I'd hear such an accusation from you of all people, professor."

"I'm not aware in how far my dancing habits are influencing yours, Miss Bennet", Darcy replied with a slight twitch around the corners of his mouth.

"Ah let me see... it's just this teeny tiny word called "hypocrite"." She smiled sweetly and the green flared up under her lashes.

The twitch grew a bit stronger and the slight scratching of his voice in her hear sent shivers down her spine.

"Why are you calling me a liar, Miss Bennet?"

She chuckled. "Why ever do you think, I'm talking about _you_?" Darcy just looked at her. "Oh, fine!", she huffed. "Besides your dancing habits, I distinctly remember you declaring that you don't drink alcohol."

"That's true."

"And what about this little incident earlier?", Lizzie asked and raised an eyebrow.

"Damage control", Darcy replied, his face a mask made of stone and ice.

"Interesting..." She nodded. "You do have an explanation for everything, don't you?"

"I think I'm not the only one fitting this description", Darcy retorted, his lips contorted into something one would normally interpret as a kind of dry smile. "But I think you're only disappointed that I'm not some alcohol addict."

"Yeah", she grimaced. "Every student dreams of their professors being freaky junkies of some kind."

"Universal justice?"

"Easier to get rid of."

Lizzie looked at Darcy and risked a grin, but the professor just gazed at her intently.

"Would you like to dance?", he finally asked with a straight face and Lizzie had to bite her lip in order not to laugh out loudly at the absolute absurdity of the scene.

She threw her head back and her earrings clinked like wind chimes. "No, thank you, Darcy, but I'm not that desperate."

"Do you need to be desperate in order to dance with me?", Darcy asked, his brow furrowed. Uh, someone got his ego ripped into pieces...

"Nah, just more than tolerable and not a pain in your posterior", Lizzie retorted, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

He was silent for a few beats, a dark, brooding enigma to her right and she tried to ignore the goosebumps, that were creeping up her arm. These bloody traitors...

"So you've heard."

Lizzie smiled and took another sip of her wine. "A bit of advice, Darcy. Never insult people if you're not sure that your target is out of earshot."

"That's the third advice you gave me, Miss Bennet."

"Follow them like you did with the rest, Darcy. They're free, I won't charge you for them." She cocked her head and observed the man with the gloomy expression next to her. "To be honest, I'm surprised you counted them."

The professor laughed at that and the sound confused Lizzie for a moment. "You should show human emotions more often, Darcy", she then said with a smile.

"Advice number four?", the professor replied without batting an eyelash.

"They could mistake you for a real human being."

"And not for a robot?"

Now it was Lizzies turn to laugh out loudly and she threw her head back so that her earrings grazed her shoulders. "Admit that I got you, C3PO."

"Star Wars?", Darcy asked and folded his napkin neatly together before placing it in just the right distance next to his glass. "That's precious. Really precious."

"I thought I should choose something more fitting to your generation, professor. Wouldn't want to risk a culture shock, right?" She grinned.

"And Star Wars is my generation?", Darcy asked and arched an eyebrow.

"You recognized C3PO", Lizzie deadpanned and took another sip of her wine.

"And what does your knowledge about Star Wars tell us about you?"

Lizzie lifted both eyebrows. "That I got some crazy flatmates", she replied and Darcy was saved an answer by Charlie and Jane, who came back flushed and beaming to the table.

"Where's Caroline?", Charlie asked immediately and began looking for her.

"She's in the bathroom", Lizzie replied, when Darcy refused to answer. Charlie's eyes darkened considerably at her words and he gazed at Darcy, who nodded curtly.

The blonde man pressed his lips tightly together, before whispering something in Jane's ear, who also nodded gravely and they both sat down.

"You two should go dancing", Charlie suggested to Lizzie and Darcy and pointed towards the dance-floor. "The music is fantastic."

"Oh, but of course!", Jane chimed in and smiled encouragingly at her little sister. "You like this kind of music, right?"

"That's true", Lizzie replied still smiling, feeling more and more like some loopy crazy Buddha-version – she definitely spent way too much time with Anne – but made no attempt to escape.

"You like this kind of music?", Darcy asked and she took a deep breath, forced herself to ignore him and his opinions about her taste in music. She felt like a saint, literally.

"Miss Bennet?" She looked at Jane and tried to find something, anything to talk about with her sister, but Jane's gaze scurried from her to Darcy and back in an endless circle. "Lizzie", she said, a silent threat in her voice and Lizzie sighed in defeat. She really needed to free herself from the power Jane had over her life.

"I heard you the first time, Darcy. I just didn't want to give you the satisfaction."

"What satisfaction?" He honestly seemed confused.

"The glee, you must surely feel surging through your veins, when you can make fun of my tastes, Darcy."

"I think you mistake me for someone else, Miss Bennet. Besides, you've already lectured me about your taste in music on Thursday."

Lizzie smiled a bit lost in thought. "That I did."

"So why aren't you dancing?", Charlie asked, brow furrowed.

"Miss Bennet doesn't seem to be in the mood for dancing at the moment", Darcy replied tersely, his face expressionless.

"Oh, I'm not in the mood for a lot of things today", Lizzie murmured in her glass of wine, ignoring the bewildered expressions of the people around her.

"What are you talking about, Lizzie? You love to dance!", Jane cried out, her tone rebuking while her eyes were pleading.

"Of course, Janie, I love to dance", Lizzie repeated, the same expression of blessed equanimity on her face.

"Then why aren't you dancing?", Charlie asked, caught somewhere between confusion and amusement.

"Yeah, why am I not dancing?", Lizzie asked innocently and took another sip of her wine.

"Are you afraid, Miss Benent?" Darcy leaned forward, his dark eyes piercing into hers.

"What should I be afraid of?" She looked at him questioningly.

"Well, I can think of no other explanation for your reluctance to dance with me." He'd pressed his his palms flat against the table and she wasn't sure if she just imagined the smile playing around the corner of his mouth.

"I'm afraid of a lot of things", Lizzie replied, her face suddenly hard. "But dancing is not one of them." Her gaze scurried to Jane and Charlie, who were watching them closely. "I'm not afraid", she repeated, more emphatically this time. Charlie smirked.

"So then why don't you tell us, what you're actually afraid of?", he asked and leaned back in his chair.

Lizzie sighed and rolled her eyes. "Of orca whales and owls", she replied, without looking any of them in the eye.

Jane and Charlie were silent, but she thought, she heard something like a laugh coming from Darcy.

"Pray tell, Miss Bennet", the professor demanded to know. "Do you often dream of strangers wearing your clothes or waking up in hotel rooms and getting caught with cocaine?"

"Sometimes", Lizzie said vaguely and looked at Jane, but her sister just shook her head smiling.

"You shouldn't always copy your playlists on my iPod, Lizzie", she said amused. "Then perhaps I would have believed you."

"See, Miss Bennet, I think you need to restore your credibility, don't you think?", Darcy's voice sounded to her right and when she looked up, the professor was already on his feet and had reached out for her hand, just right when, accompanied by hammering basses, a new song began.

"_Angels fall to earth... world heats down...cool..."_

"Fine", she said and ignoring his hand, she marched directly towards the dance-floor.

"_Devil-girl you must burn..."_

"Who told you, I would dance with you?", she asked despite the loud music, the basses and the voice describing the apocalypse.

"_...burn at the touch of the autumn's crest..."_

"So you wanted to dance alone?" He arched an eyebrow. She shrugged.

"I would have found someone."

"I don't doubt that", Darcy replied tersely and she suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at that and decided to just leave him to his impressions. Fucking, judgemental idiot.

"Why the change of mind?", she asked instead, trying to ignore the burning hand on her waist. Darcy just gazed at her intently and seemed to prefer silence.

"Oh, that's what I call fairness", Lizzie observed with a shake of her head. "You can't just retreat into your cloak of silence or whatever it is that you call it when you two are alone and I have to answer every single inane question."

"You could also just find topics, which focus on anything but my past behaviour", Darcy suggested while spinning her around.

"_You gotta wait on the samhain of my soul..."_

She cocked her head slightly. "Oh no, that would rob us of approximately 90 percent of our current topics", she threw back. "Sorry, Darcy."

"_I'm gonna bring your world down in fire..."_

"So you think, we have no common interests? What about university?

"Oh, believe me", she pirouetted right under his arm. "You don't wanna go there. If we start that discussion we'll end up yelling or sulking on different sides of the room."

"I was under the impression that our normal difference in circumstances do not affect us in private?"

"Wow", she said and opened her mouth in mock surprise. "It sounds so _dirty_ if you put it that way."

"Miss Bennet", Darcy admonished her and his eyes seemed, if possible, even darker. She tried to suppress the laugh, bubbling in her throat.

"I just think our opinions differ too much for a peaceful conversation", she then said and the female voice repeated the refrain before the volume rose.

"_You gotta wait on the samhain of my soul..._ _I'm gonna bring your world down in fire..."_

Darcy gazed at her, his eyes dark and unreadable, before his grip around her waist tightened.

"And what about music?", he asked, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth, when he pulled her towards him with a sudden yank and she was faced with his chest, only centimetres away from her. The white of his shirt lit up in the strange blueish light.

"_Come make me love in the house of ice, see you melt down more than once or twice, make you shake till worlds align, and see your body tremble with your blood on fire..."_

Lizzie gritted her teeth, forcing herself to look at Darcy despite the confusing closeness, which had her nerve endings trembling in agitation. _"...cause the season in my veins, well it's ready to burn, and the feeling of my body, gotta pray and learn..."_

She tried to control her facial expressions, dug her nails in Darcy's flesh to show him that she wasn't afraid. His face was towering above her, she felt his breath on her face, felt the warmth diffusing through the thin cotton fabric. He was even closer than before and she forced herself not to jerk back. _"Change all things that you ever seen and change all visions, kill all endings!"_

Darcy attempted to say something, but she wouldn't let him speak.

"Oh my goodness, what's Caroline doing over there?", she suddenly cried out, when she caught sight of the blonde in the turquoise dress, arguing animatedly with her older brother.

She felt the tension radiating from Darcy, saw the muscles tighten, before he let her go.

"Excuse me", he said before making his way through the swaying couples, leaving a burning imprint on her skin.

"_You gotta wait on the samhain of my soul..."_

* * *

When Lizzie finally reached their table, Darcy was already there, deep in discussion with Charlie, while up front at the cloak room, Jane was trying to manoeuvre Caroline into an equally turquoise coat. The blonde was sulking and loud, completely inappropriate remarks were falling sporadically from her pink, lipstick-covered lips, while Jane used all her powers of persuasion with a furrowed brow.

Lizzie got closer and caught some pieces of the conversation between Darcy and Charlie.

"She wanted to get a cocktail and I told her it's enough... Jane tried to distract her, but... made a scene... don't know how she got enough to reach this state..."

Darcy just shook his head and looked disapprovingly at Caroline.

"Did you take a look at what she took in the bathroom?", Lizzie asked, standing next to Charlie with a worried look on her face, but he just shook his head.

"What do you mean?", he asked. Lizzie shrugged, her brow furrowed. "She was pretty quiet when she left for the bathroom and when it happened after she got back-"

"Miss Bennet, that's none of your business-", Darcy interjected, his voice dark and threatening, Lizzie ignored him, placing a hand on Charlie's arm instead.

"Charlie, you don't reach that kind of state solely through alcohol", she cast a glance at Caroline, who was now lecturing Jane about the best designer shops in London while cackling like a freaking manic. "She's not slurring and she's able to walk straight, but she's definitely high-"

"Miss Bennet!" Darcy seemed to boom and she forced herself to ignore him.

"Charlie." The blonde man flinched at the sound of the word "high". "Did you check her pupils?"

"That's enough, Miss Bennet", Darcy interjected and removed her hand from Charlie's arm by grabbing her wrist. "Take Caroline home", he advised his friend before turning around to Lizzie, who shrugged of his hand with barely concealed anger and a silent threat in her sparkling eyes. "Don't you dare", she hissed through clenched teeth.

The professor opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off by walking over to Jane, who was trying desperately to keep Caroline under control.

"You want to leave?", Lizzie asked Jane with a side glance to Caroline. Jane nodded. "It's probably for the best", she said and looked apologetically at her younger sister, who just shrugged.

"Eliza!", Caroline cried out right then and up close Lizzie could see, that the black of her pupils had completely taken over the pale blue of her iris'. "It seems like you've caught our dear Darcy!" Her voice shrilled in Lizzies ears, but she tried not to wince or grimace at the sound. Caroline snorted. "Probably just some teacher's fantasy..." She snorted again. "You'll see, little girl. Sooner or later he'll get tired of you and then... then he'll come back to me!" Her voice reached new heights at the last few words and Lizzie saw Jane biting her tongue while trying desperately to find a way to change the topic. "He always comes backs to me!"

"Don't you worry, Carol", Lizzie replied dryly. "I'm sure your fiancé will come back soon to plan your wedding with you."

"Right!" Caroline leaned a bit down to Lizzie. "I know girls like you, Eliza. Men need those little adventures sometime to see what they really need in life." She smiled condescendingly at Lizzie. "And that's not some little masturbation-fantasy."

Jane's face grew pale at Caroline's words and she was close to bombard Lizzie with apologies in Caroline's name, but Lizzie just smiled reassuringly and patted the arm of the intoxicated blonde. "I'm sure, you're right." She grinned. "Speaking from fantasy to fantasy of course."

She grabbed her jacket from the cloak room and wanted to say goodbye to Jane, but her sister wouldn't let her go.

"You're not going to take the tube in order to get home, right?", Jane asked her, the worry evident in her voice. Lizzie just shrugged while Crazy Caroline cried out the word "tube!" in delight and started another monologue about tooth paste.

"Why ever not?", Lizzie asked and furrowed her brow. "You and Charlie are living in the opposite direction and you have to take home little Miss Snowbird over there, besides it doesn't take long, only a few stations or so."

"But it's after ten!", Jane cried out. "And I'm sure Darcy can take you home."

"Exactly, Eliza", Caroline chimed in. "You can't go into those dangerous trains with all these poor and filthy people! They're going to mug you or worse, think you're one of them!" The thought seemed to disturb her greatly and she was silent until she processed the second part of Jane's reply. "But going with Darcy...No! I'm sure we can take her with us, Janie!"

Jane shook her head and started an explanation but Lizzie cocked her head and looked questioningly at the babbling blonde. "Pray tell, Carol, do you call these people "poor" because you think they have no money or because you feel pity for them?"

"What a question!", the blonde with the overly large, black pupils cried out, exactly when Jane's elbow met its target.

"Argh." Lizzie glared at Jane and rubbed her side with a furious expression on her face. "That was uncalled for", she hissed before Charlie and Darcy reached them and also grabbed their coats.

"Darcy?", Jane asked in her best "Jane-voice" and the brooding man looked up. Lizzie was seriously tempted to also push her elbow in between Jane's ribs for fairness and of course to distract her from her purpose, but she refrained from doing so because it would have been way to obvious.

Not to mention childish.

"Can you take my sister home? It's late and you're headed in the same direction."

"Jane, I already told you, it's no problem for me to take the tube", Lizzie tried to talk her sister out of it, but Jane wouldn't have it and gazed at Darcy with her big blue eyes. Yeah, that never failed.

He swallowed. "Where do you live, Miss Bennet?", he asked and looked over to Lizzie.

"Camden Town", the girl with the green eyes answered begrudgingly.

"Camden Town!", Caroline cried out in horror and Lizzie was sure, the blonde was going to faint.

"Caroline, that's enough!", Charlie interjected and tried to guide his sister out of the restaurant, but Caroline didn't seem to think this plan as desirable as her brother and clung to Darcy's free arm .

"Oh William, why can't you take me home?", she whined and looked up at him with her big black pupils, which made her look slightly spaced out.

"Because that would be completely absurd", Darcy said stiffly and pried her claws from his arm. "You're a guest at your brother's apartment, he'll drive you home."

"But who will bring me to bed?", Caroline cried out and pouted – Lizzie would have laughed if Jane's elbow hadn't still been a painful reminder. She swore her sister was a closet-sadist.

"Your brother", Darcy simply said and handed the reluctant blonde over to Charlie, who without a word and with such a frightening expression on his normally cheerful face pulled her out of the restaurant and over to his car.

Jane, Lizzie and Darcy looked at each other uncomfortably before they also made their way outside. Caroline was already in her seat, mouth wide open, vehemently discussing something or other with her brother and Lizzie saw her chance for a quick goodbye and an even quicker disappearance, when everyone's attention was focused on the screeching blonde for a moment.

But she hadn't counted on Jane and Darcy.

"Don't you dare", Jane reprimanded her sister, long before she could even utter the words "Until tomorrow then", at the same time as Darcy said "I'll take her.".

"Hey, did you gang up on me?", she asked a bit defiantly but refrained from pouting, after Caroline had so clearly violated that tactic before. "What's your bloody problem with the London railway system?"

"Your mouth", Darcy replied without batting an eyelash, while reaching for his keys. "And your manners."

"Jane!", Lizzie cried out. "You let him treat me like that?"

"You hit first, Lizzie", Jane replied with a twinkle in her eyes, before hugging her sister and admonishing her not to do any naughty things.

"Jane!", Lizzie cried out and if she hadn't been so hard-boiled, the thought about doing "naughty" stuff with her professor would have made her blush, but the way it was, it only disturbed her peace of mind.

Jane only laughed and waved before getting into Charlie's car, who pulled his shiny black BMW carefully out into traffic.

This effectively left Darcy and Lizzie behind on the pavement and the girl with the arms crossed over her chest didn't look a bit like she would set foot in her professor's black Range Rover any time soon.

"Are you coming?", he asked confused through the open window. Lizzie bit her lip and shook her head, her arms still crossed over her chest.

"My mum told me not to set foot in a stranger's car."

She heard him sigh. "I'm hardly a stranger, Miss Bennet."

"My mum said, they would tell me that too." She batted her eyelashes.

"Miss Bennet!" The exasperated voice of her professor raised a smile from Lizzie.

"I'm also not allowed to talk to strangers", she replied and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, while searching for her mobile-phone. Fuck, three missed calls, all from Craig... Hopefully there was nothing wrong... Who was she kidding? There was definitely something wrong over there.

"Miss Bennet, do I really need to call your sister?", the professor threatened and at least achieved that she looked up at him.

Lizzie sighed, before putting her phone back into the pocket of her leather jacket. "Miss Bennet!"

"You're not playing fair!", she complained before entering the car and shutting the door with a thud.

"Finally", Darcy muttered before starting the motor. Lizzie just snorted.

They passed a few crossroads in chilly silence before Lizzie remembered that it would irk him more, if she forced him to speak.

"That's a pretty big car", she remarked, knees pressed against the dashboard.

"That's true", Darcy replied, eyes glued to the streets. Lizzie laughed quietly.

"What's so funny?", the professor asked a bit indignantly and gazed at her for a quarter of a second.

"Nothing." She laughed again. "Only that most guys, I know, would jump at the chance to boost about their car and all its little gadgets, you know?"

"There's a manual in the glove department, if you're interested in such information."

"No, thank you very much", Lizzie replied and watched London at night passing by.

"Then why do you ask?"

"Just curious, how someone can come up with the freaking great idea to drive such a car in London of all places. Look, I mean, it's like being the bull in a china shop, don't you think?"

"Please speak only for yourself, I find this vehicle to be perfectly adequate."

"And this striking attribute persuaded you to buy this monstrosity in order to knock down innocent garbage cans?", Lizzie asked teasingly, some strands of hair had escaped the confines of her hairstyle and now tickled her neck.

"I bought it before I moved to London", Darcy replied and she felt the irritation radiating from him like radioactive waves. "I think you know that."

"Oh yeah...", she mumbled against the window pane. "Derbyshire... What's Derbyshire like?"

"Green", Darcy replied and Lizzie laughed.

"As green as Africa's hot?", she teased and looked at him with sparkling green eyes.

"And we're back to discussing my past behaviour...", Darcy sighed before turning left at the crossroad. "What's your problem now, Miss Bennet?"

"Only that you have a way to state the obvious."

"Someone has to to do it, don't you think?", Darcy retorted, his profile was silhouetted in sharp contrasts against the reddish-yellow light coming from the streets.

"And the man with the two doctor's degrees has to be the one?" Darcy laughed a bit bitterly.

"You've definitely done your homework, Miss Bennet."

"No, I'm just so unbelievably lucky to sit right in the middle of a very active network of dedicated gossips." She sighed. "Google makes your life soo much easier."

"And encourages stalking", Darcy added and passed by a red Opel Corsa.

"No, that's Facebook, Captain Obvious."

"Another nice nickname", Darcy replied. "Where do you get them from? Do you collect them in a box or something?"

"Oh my fucking goodness, he knows sarcasm!", Lizzie exclaimed and sat up straight. "My, my! One could mistake you for a real human being if you just optimize your motion sequences!"

"I am a human being, Miss Bennet", Darcy replied. "Please stop doubting that."

"Oh someone's getting a bit edgy now!", Lizzie cried and grinned. "Are you afraid the government's going to find and catch you?"

"Miss Bennet..."

"Pray tell, from which research establishment did you flee? The one about artificial intelligence or the one where they try to create some kind of superhuman?"

"Miss Bennet..."

"Because if it's the latter, then I have to tell them that they made some mistakes, unless they wanted to create a social retard, because then -"

"Miss Bennet, I'd advise you not to continue that line of thought." The professor's voice was menacing and she saw him gripping the steering wheel tightly.

"You know about freedom of opinion in this country, right?"

"Not when it includes insults, Miss Bennet. I could sue you for slander."

"And he's getting dramatic...", Lizzie muttered and rolled her eyes. Darcy didn't say anything and the part of her that was too fucking much like Jane, looked at her with big doe-like eyes and scolded her for her behaviour.

"Oh fine!", she muttered to herself, before turning around in her seat, watching the professor's stone like expression. "Hey Darcy", she whispered, her cheek pressed against the back of her seat. The professor turned to her, they were waiting in front of the traffic lights for the light to turn green. "I'm sorry", she said with a sigh and the professor just nodded.

The next few minutes passed in silence, only interrupted by Darcy's question about her address, which she quickly typed into the navigation-system.

"Why did you call me her fiancé in front of Caroline?", Darcy asked after a while of amicable silence.

Lizzie grinned. "You should always play along with the hallucinations of a mad woman", she replied and laughed even louder when Darcy groaned in annoyance.

"Yes, she's definitely hallucinating", he said and Lizzie half expected him to apologize for his past behaviour or give her any kind of explanation, but nothing came and she decided to call Jane the next morning if only to find out how her sister was coping with all of this.

It took some time until they reached Camden and some additional time until they finally got to the street, where Lizzie's apartment was situated. _Philip's_ was ablaze with light and groups of people were standing outside on the pavement, beer in their hands, laughing loudly and happily.

"What's going on here?", Darcy asked when he stopped on the other side of the road and the barely concealed disapproval in his voice made Lizzie's answer harsher than usual.

"Saturday is Happy Hour at _Philip's_", she replied and grabbed her bag. She was halfway out of the car, when she recognized one of the swaying figures in the half shade of the Pub.

"Craig!", she cried out, thinking about the missed calls and ran across the street over to the figure, who'd stretched out a hand in order to find something, anything to lean on to.

"Craig!", she cried out again. Some of the guests looked up, but most ignored the blonde man, who even though he wore jeans now, still had the Superman-T-Shirt on.

"Lizzie Bennet!", he said with a grin, when he recognized her and stretched out his other hand a bit helplessly as if to greet her that way. Lizzie took his free arm and held his foolishly grinning face with the other.

"Craig, what's up?", she asked but the guy in the superman-T-Shirt wouldn't answer her and just fell forward when he actually found someone to lean on to. They were both in serious danger to keel over and they would have if Darcy hadn't come up to them at that moment and kept the blonde guy upright. Lizzie hadn't noticed him following her. Weird.

"What did he take?", Darcy asked through gritted teeth, while holding a swaying Craig in place.

"I don't know", Lizzie explained, before grabbing Craig's head again and forcing him to look her in the eye. "Craig, hey Craig..." She tried to find the familiar green-brown iris', which seemed to disappear between his half closed eyelids and she tried to hold them with her own green ones. "Craig, what did you take?", she demanded to know and caressed his cheek and forehead. "Come on, Craig, just tell me...just fucking tell me!" But the blonde guy just blinked and smiled blissfully.

"Argh, that's not going to work!", Lizzie ranted and turned around to face the club. "Marley!", she yelled, banging against the window next to them and startling the guests. "Marley!"

"Whaz up?", a female voice barked, before she opened the window with the colourful pane, Lizzie previously had used as a punching bag. A woman in her fifties with long grey hair in braid stared at them, a cigarette in one hand.

"Marley, what did he take?", Lizzie demanded to know, Craig's face still in her hands.

"I don't know", the woman named Marley replied and took in Craig's state with a worried expression on her face. "I've seen 'im smokin' and drinkin' some pints but it's pretty fuckin' crowded in there and I couldn't see 'im the 'hole time."

Lizzie growled in frustration. "Are Forster's guys there?", she asked her, ignoring Darcy's iron mien.

Marley nodded darkly. "I told 'em to do their freakin' shit outside, but ya never know what they've hidden in their red hoodies." She cursed. "That was the bloody last time, I let myself get sweet-talked into allowing them back into my club. Stupid, bloody Forster! Makin' an exception for those shitheads!"

"It's not your fault, Mar", Lizzie replied, biting back those angry tears burning in her eyes while gazing into Craig's happily smiling face. "You couldn't do anything about it."

"I damn well could!", Marley shouted, her piercing blue eyes squinted in anger. "It's my fuckin' Pub and my fuckin' rules and anyone who disobeys, will have to face the consequences!" She cast another worried glance in Craig's direction. "You think he'll make it?", she asked, her brow furrowed, looking from Lizzie to Darcy.

"'Tis nothing a good night of sleep won't cure ", Lizzie replied with a small smile. Marley nodded. "You're a good gal, Lizzie-Bee", she said sympathetically. "Takin' care of your friend like that."

Lizzie nodded. "But not good enough to keep him from taking this shit in the first place." She shook her head and did so even more vehemently, when Marley started protesting.

"Leave it, Mar, I know whose bloody fault this mess is and it's not only because of the Forster guys."

Marley just nodded and after a quick goodbye, she shut her window again.

"Shouldn't we find out what exactly he took?", Darcy asked, after Lizzie had wrapped Craig's free arm over her shoulders and with Darcy's help walked him to the entrance of their apartment building.

"Not necessary", Lizzie replied, while trying to grab her keys, an endeavour which Craig's weight around her shoulder rendered nearly impossible. "Forster's guys always sell the same shit."

"Still, he belongs in a hospital", Darcy persisted and Lizzie suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

"So that they can add this to his medical history and inform the police?", Lizzie asked sarcastically and finally managed to get her keys in the lock and opened the door. "Nah, don't think so."

"He would be under medical supervision while he sleeps off his... intoxication."

She bit her lip in a silent attempt not to lash out at him and switched on the light in the hallway. "I'm his medical supervision."

"You're a student", Darcy replied sharply. "What are you going to do if he starts hallucinating and wants to jump out of the window in the middle of the night?"

"Goodness, Darcy, he took some morphine pills not fucking ecstasy!"

"M...", babbled Craig. "Haha... M!"

"See?", Lizzie added and the strange trio walked in the direction of the staircase.

"And what about additional effects due to the alcohol?", Darcy asked while they dragged Craig up the stairs to the second floor.

"Bloddy hell, Darcy, I know Craig and I know his states of intoxication, he'll sleep it off and wake up tomorrow with one hell of a hangover!"

"Did he ever get checked because of long-term damages?" The guy just wouldn't stop and Lizzie was severely tempted to ask him if _he_ ever got checked because of said damages, but refrained from doing so when they reached the front door of Craig's apartment.

She reached for Craig's keys in his pocket, letting them appear like magic in her hands, then worked herself diligently through the wicked lock and into his apartment.

Lizzie switched on the light. Some empty fast food boxes, a bunch of wires, two motherboards and a few bottles of coca cola greeted them standing on the small table in the kitchen or lying in the sink,

"Over there!", she said and pointed at the door leading to Craig's bedroom. They manoeuvred their charge through the small kitchen and the equally small door frame and Lizzie escaped a sigh when they finally dropped Craig on his bed, which was flanked by a bunch of broken laptops and other electronic garbage. Yeah, talk about Feng-Shui.

She tucked in Craig, who practically fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillows, before walking back to the kitchen, Darcy in tow.

"It's cramped", the professor remarked, while she filled a glass with water from the main and downed it with one gulp.

"Welcome to the living hell of a student's life", Lizzie heard herself say in reply, while she stood there leaned against the kitchen counter, thinking about the hundred and one ways she could kill and torture Forster's guys. Not in that order of course.

"It's dirty", Darcy replied, his face a mask as if he was just stating the obvious and not insulting her and her life with every word.

"Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious", Lizzie mumbled and rolled her eyes. Why couldn't he just leave?

"You'll sleep here tonight, I take?", the professor asked and cast a scrutinizing glance at their surroundings.

"Yes", Lizzie simply said, pressing the cool glass against her lip.

"Do you live here, too?", he asked, his eyes glued to Lizzie, who shook her head.

"I'm living down the hallway", she answered, staring at the postcards someone had plastered across the wall next to the calendar. At least two of them were from her, sent from one of her trips to Africa.

"Then why didn't you take him there?", Darcy questioned further, as if they were playing Twenty-questions and about to make out when they were finished. Screw that, not going to happen, she thought.

"Didn't you see the sock over the handle?" At the absolutely _clueless_ expression on the professor's face she laughed a bit hollowly. "Uni-times are long gone, what?"

Darcy kept staring at her stoically and she refrained from elaborating her answer any further. Silence surged between them and Lizzie wondered, when the hell he was finally going to leave, when Darcy cleared his throat.

"Unfortunately I have to tell you that because of the repeated use of prescription medicine it's necessary for your friend to visit a psychologist." Darcy's eyes were hard when locking with Lizzie's absurdly green ones. Her mouth fell open.

"Are you fucking serious?", she cried out and crashed her glass down against the counter top.

"Miss Bennet, I assure you, considering the circumstances-"

"Craig doesn't need a fucking headshrinker!", Lizzie exploded, curling her hands into fists while taking several steps in the professor's direction.

Darcy didn't back off, just took in her obvious fury with hasty movements of his dark eyes. "Miss Bennet, I'm absolutely sure about the necessity of such a course of action and-"

"The only thing, Craig needs, is a little more fucking tolerance." She pressed her thumb and index finger tightly together and held them in front of Darcy's face. "Only a bit more tolerance and he could lead a freaking happy life without taking those shitty pills to survive on a daily basis!"

"Miss Bennet, that's exactly the point, he needs help, professional help, which you cannot provide and-"

"You have no bloody idea, what he needs!", she cried out, her fists only millimetres away from his face. He grabbed them, held them suddenly and both were at loss for words.

She felt the warmth, his warmth around her wrists, saw his dark eyes holding her green ones in place and she felt something inside of her awaken. A slight pull under her navel, a tickling somewhere deep in her throat, she breathed in, breathed in his scent.

"Miss Bennet", Darcy whispered, his face inches away from hers. That was all it took.

"Get out", she mumbled, her eyes still caught in his and when he didn't react immediately, she ripped her wrists out of his grip. "Get the fuck out of here!", she cried with all that was left in her and created as much distance between them as was possible in the small kitchen.

"Miss Bennet, I'm-"

"Go away!", she yelled and ripped open the door. "Miss Bennet, perhaps I should stay here, just to-"

"Go!", she simply cried and she was so freaking close to shoving him out of the apartment by herself that her hands shook violently. Darcy finally seemed to get that and capitulated, leaving the apartment with an iron mien and hands raised in silent defeat.

"Just go", she mumbled and leaned tiredly against the closed door. She could hear Darcy's steps and how they reluctantly moved away. _Finally_.

She would have fallen asleep there against the door, this whole day had drained so much of energy, more than she'd been aware of, and she was so close to oblivion but the pins in her hair kept her awake.

"Wretched, fucking little pains in the ass", she cursed, taking out the little culprits and walking over to Craig's bedroom, where she lost her shoes, socks and tights before she crawled under the covers clad in only her T-Shirt and underwear.

She thought about what she shouted at Darcy, that Craig only needed a bit more tolerance to be happy. _Who_ _doesn't_?, she mused with a sigh and wrapped her arms around Craig's waist, pressing her face in his neck, thinking that if she just entwined herself close enough around him that she could protect him.

From all the evil ones out there, who didn't understand what beauty was and wanted to destroy it in their ignorance.

From all the monsters under the bed and in the real world.

* * *

**A/N: First: THIS IS NOT HUNSFORD! just thought I'd mention it :D we're roughly at the Netherfield Arc... whatever... Hunsford will be a lot more... dramatic... take Long Live the King and multiply it by seven... just to get an idea...  
**

**So yeah... that's it... next one is a long one with some information about Lizzie's past... But about this one: Did you like it? Lizzie? Darcy? Caroline? I always wanted to get Carol a little more depth and to thicken their plot (ya know, why Charlie and Darcy keep up with her:) **

**However, let's do a little challenge: find out what Carol is addicted to and I'll think about a reward;) **

**See ya, next time!**


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